The Vixen
by Proforce
Summary: Carmelita is forced to make a tough decision regarding Sly and his gang. Meanwhile, a new thief shows up able to predict Sly's heists in advance, flirting with Sly as she leaves cryptic clues behind for him to solve. Can Sly put all the pieces together?
1. A Look in the Mirror

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Author's Note: Well, I'm finally breaking down and doing it. After seeing all the flame wars and back-and-forth garbage going on on I've decided to jump into the fray with both feet. As I've said on my profile page, I support Sly/Carmelita, and this fic will be focused on that. If you don't like that pairing, stop reading right now. If you do, then I hope that this fic will be at least somewhat original and entertaining for you.

If the idea behind this fic looks familiar, it should. I've based this fic on an episode of a show I used to watch some time ago. The specifics have been twisted around and crafted to suit my own purposes, but I do want to acknowledge that there is a source. So if you figure out what I'm referring to, then you should know just what I'm up to, but I won't confirm it until the final chapter. But even if you're right, be prepared for a number of surprises; I'm not that predictable.

I know Sly 3: Band of Thieves has been released by now, I've beaten it, in fact. I am not, however, using any of that knowledge here. Bentley and Murray are both still on the team, though Bentley will be in a wheelchair. After Clock-La's beak clamped down on him, that's almost unavoidable. Happy Reading everyone!

Chapter 1: A Look in the Mirror.

Detective Carmelita Montoya Fox sat at her desk, idly toying with the bottle of wine that she had found returned to her only moments ago. "I'll find you Cooper," she said for what may have been the tenth time. "And when I do, I'll throw you in jail myself."

A smile still lingered on her lips, one that Carmelita found herself both unable and unwilling to get rid of. Part of the reason she was smiling was because she was picturing quite vividly the day she finally brought Cooper to ground. The other part was because there was still a chance that it could happen. The chase would continue.

Though it had been her job, it had been wholly unsatisfying for Carmelita to capture that Ringtail the way she had. Of all the chances she'd had to catch him, doing it while his friend was severely injured had left a bad taste in her mouth. She wanted to beat him at his own game, to outwit and outthink him. When she slapped the cuffs on him again, it would be because she had won, not some noble sacrifice on his part to save an injured friend.

Carmelita's smile drooped a little at that thought. Much as she'd like to deny it, Cooper had a type of honor that she didn't even see in the other cops at her precinct. He'd saved her life a few times when leaving her would have allowed him to get away and disappear from anyone's sight. And he was unwaveringly loyal to his friends, as his sacrifice had proven. If he were not the thief he was, she might even consider him a friend if not more.

She shook her head angrily at that. Thinking like that was dangerous at best, treasonous at worst. Sly Cooper was nothing more than a lowlife criminal that needed to be brought to justice. It was as simple as that. Any time she even began to think otherwise, all she had to do was remember when he handcuffed her to the railing in the volcano. If she hadn't found a lockpick that Cooper had inadvertently dropped, she would've been there for a few days at the least. Looking at the faint scars on her wrist from where her handcuffs had bitten into her flesh always brought the anger back in full force and focus.

It was at this moment that her phone rang, bad timing for whoever was on the other end. "What?" she snarled, picking up the phone from its cradle.

"Fox!" a harsh voice on the phone barked at her.

The effect of that voice on her anger was akin to throwing a bucket of ice water on a raging fire. "Ch-Chief!" she stammered, sitting down in her chair roughly. "I didn't...I mean, I wouldn't--"

"No more of your excuses," the chief barked again and Carmelita had to hold the handset away from her ear lest she be deafened by it. "I want you in my office now! Is that understood?"

"Right away Chief!" Carmelita answered only to hear the phone beep as the chief had already hung up. Grabbing her jacket from the coat rack, she quickly donned it and nearly ran from her office.

No sooner had she entered the hallway than all conversation within it stopped. Though she tried to ignore it, Carmelita couldn't help but be unnerved by the stares she was receiving. Every single pair of eyes on her held a mixture of pity and some other emotion she couldn't take the time to analyze. And her bad feeling only grew worse, making her hackles raise a slight bit, as she stood before the chief's door.

She raised her hand to knock on the door, having to actually force herself to do it. "I'm waiting," the chief yelled through the door, making Carmelita jump a bit in surprise. Gathering her courage, she opened the door and walked inside.

"Detective Fox reporting as requested sir," she said, standing rigidly at attention.

"Close the door Inspector Fox," the chief said, placing a picture frame back into his desk and shutting the drawer.

Carmelita could feel her ears and tail droop as she closed the door. Demoted back to Inspector! How humiliating! And it was all that blasted Ringtail's fault! She took a deep breath and willed away her nervousness as she turned back to face the chief. "What is it you wanted Chief?" she asked in her most business-like voice.

"Sit down Inspector," the chief said, glaring at Carmelita through his bushy eyebrows as she sat in the simple wooden chair across the desk from him. Chief Barkley was a rather portly dog, but woe to anyone who took his large size as a sign of weakness. He still held many of the hand-to-hand fighting titles in both the academy and Interpol, something he backed up whenever he was challenged without hesitation. And for those unfortunate enough to think he was all brawn, he would happily prove that his intellect and cunning were at least on par with his fighting abilities. In short, this was why he was on track to be Interpol's longest serving chief in a century. "Now then," Chief Barkley said in a very calm voice, a very bad thing to those who knew him, "I would like you to explain to me just how a certain raccoon master thief managed to slip out of your custody for...what is it now? The fourth time? Fifth? I've lost count."

"It's not my fault," Carmelita protested before she even knew it.

One of the chief's eyebrows raised at Carmelita's words. "Not your fault? Just what were you doing that you didn't notice that it was taking over two hours for a ten minute flight?" Carmelita's cheeks notably pinked at the chief's unspoken accusations, but she was unable to say exactly why she hadn't noticed that detail. "It's as I thought then," the chief huffed, leaning back in his chair until the springs creaked, "you're too emotionally involved in this case. As of this moment you're off the Cooper case."

Carmelita spluttered for a few seconds in rage before she found her voice. "You can't do that!" she demanded, standing up and slamming her hands down on his desk. "I've spent too many years to just hand over this case to some glory-seeking rookie!"

"And what makes you think I'm assigning this case to a rookie?" Chief Barkley asked, unaffected by Carmelita's display of temper. "Detective Chemp will be taking over the case."

"Chemp! How can you send someone like Chemp after Cooper? He shoots first and doesn't even bother to ask questions later. He's never brought a criminal in alive in all the time he's been a cop!"

"Which is exactly why I'm assigning Cooper to 'dead or alive' status," the chief said, his pen poised to sign the order.

Cold fear, stronger than any she had ever felt before, made her stomach tighten into a knot that might never come undone. Not even when she'd been captured by Clockwerk, tortured by the Contessa, or on the run from the very cops she normally called friend had she been this afraid. But just the thought of Sly's lifeless body riddled with gunshot wounds was enough to drain the very strength from her body. "You can't," she said in a broken whisper as she sank back onto the chair.

Chief Barkley held his pen just a hair's breadth above the paper as he regarded Carmelita. He'd never known her to be this emotional about anything. Maybe, just maybe, this would work out after all. "All right Carmelita," he said, making her look up at him because he very rarely called her by name, "I'll make you a deal. Give me one good reason, just one, why I shouldn't reassign this case and I won't. But it better be good because I'm not going to give you another chance."

"What reason could I possibly give?" Carmelita returned bitterly, not caring at the moment that she was talking to her chief. "Nothing I say could possibly matter at this point."

"How about trying the truth?" the chief asked, laying his pen down. "Not just to me, but to yourself. I want you to tell me your single most important reason why you don't want to see Sly Cooper dead."

Carmelita's mind was awhirl with reasons. Sly deserved to spend his life in jail for the crimes he's committed. The good he's done has merited at least some measure of leniency. She was perfectly capable of taking him down with more time. He saved her life; there was no way she'd allow anyone to take his.

The chief saw Carmelita's inner struggle written plainly on her face. "If you're having a hard time deciding," he said gruffly, opening up one of the drawers in his desk, "maybe this will help. All you need to do is ask yourself one question: What excuse would she accept?"

Carmelita looked up in surprise just in time to see the chief toss something at her. She caught it on instinct, wincing slightly as a sharp edge bit into her fingers. It was only when she looked down that she realized she was holding a mirror, her own reflection staring back at her.

Carmelita took a deep breath as she looked into her eyes. It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and her eyes were no exception. Gazing into her own chocolate colored orbs, she knew that there was only one answer that would satisfy her; only one reason that she could give. "You want the truth sir?" she inquired quietly, her demeanor relaxed and collected as she looked up at him. "Fine, here's the truth. I..."

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. The Vixen Appears

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Chapter 2: The Vixen Appears

It had been two months now since Clockwerk had been destroyed and Sly was starting to get bored. I mean yes, he completely understood that Bentley needed to recover and adjust to life in a wheelchair, but he did not have the type of personality that would allow him to stay still for long. He needed some action, and soon, or he was going to go crazy from cabin fever.

"Hey Sly," Murray called from the kitchen, "dinner's ready."

"Be there in a minute Murray," Sly called in answer, standing up from where he was lounging on the couch. Not for the first time, Sly was glad that Murray knew how to cook. Without him around, Sly was sure his meals would consist of TV dinners and canned beans.

Sly vaulted over the low wall that separated the living room from the kitchen and landed in his seat. Murray, used to his over-the-top antics, just kept loading hamburgers onto a plate. "Now Sly," he said slowly, as if talking to a young child, "I know you're hungry, but you're just going to have to wait for Bentley to get here. It's not polite to eat without him. Go take a quick nap or something."

"I know Murray," Sly said, rolling his eyes. "I got that within the first hundred times you mentioned it."

"Oh yeah? Then why did you swipe one of the burgers while I was putting them on this plate? And don't give me that innocent look," Murray continued without even turning around. "I'm the one who taught you how to do it back at the orphanage."

Sly grinned at the back of Murray's head, taking a big bite of the burger he was indeed holding. He knew that Murray hadn't caught him taking it, Murray just knew that Sly would do it. Besides, with as many burgers as Murray was making, surely one wouldn't be missed.

A yawn split his face as he finished the burger. Maybe a quick nap wouldn't be such a bad idea. Bentley would wake him up once he got down here. Convinced of that, Sly let his head fall onto the table and closed his eyes.

"Sly!" Bentley hissed, shaking his friend's shoulder. "Hey Sly, wake up!"

"Huh?" Sly said, sitting up and wincing at the foul taste in his mouth. He had to blink his eyes a few times to clear his vision. "How long was I out?"

Bentley rolled back in his wheelchair a foot or two as Sly stretched out "You've been out for about an hour now," he said, flinching slightly at the look of surprise on Sly's face. "Hey, we tried to wake you, but you were snoring worse than Murray."

"I do not snore," Sly protested, wiping at the corner of his mouth without realizing he was doing it.

Bentley arched an eyebrow. "No, but you do drool," he deadpanned. "Are you feeling all right? You have been sleeping a lot lately."

Sly rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Well maybe I wouldn't be sleeping so much if I actually had something to do."

"Well there's plenty to do," Bentley argued. "You could clean up the hideout, or let me teach you how to use a computer."

"I'll pass," Sly said. "Look Bentley, you're the brains of this outfit. Put me in front of a computer and I'm more likely to break it than hack it."

"Too true," Bentley had to admit. "Well, if nothing else, I guess we can go on this heist I've been planning."

It took only the words "this heist" to break Sly out of his stupor. "A heist?" he asked, his ears and tail perking up. "But wait, are you sure you're up for this? I mean, I know I'm getting antsy at all, but I don't want to rush you out there if you're not ready."

Bentley couldn't help but smile at his friend's concern. "Trust me Sly, if I wasn't ready, we wouldn't be going. Besides, it's a simple museum job. There's a piece of art on loan to the museum called 'A Vixen's Lament.' What the museum doesn't know is that really doesn't belong to the person who loaned it."

"So we'll just claim ownership of it," Sly said, taking his family's cane in one hand and twirling it around. "I'm sure it will look perfectly lovely on Detective Fox's wall." He hooked his cap with his cane and flipped it up so that it landed squarely on his head. "So, when do we leave?"

Bentley chuckled at his friend's enthusiasm. "Well, if you can keep awake, we can go now. Oh and Sly, I don't think that Inspector Fox will be able to hang a statuette on her wall."

"Inspector Fox?" Sly said slowly. "I thought she made detective?"

"She did," Bentley confirmed. "But then she was demoted right back to inspector after she let you get away. It's been in all the papers. With how much you obsess over her, I'm surprised you haven't found out about it by now."

"I am only as obsessed with her as she is obsessed with me."

Bentley rolled his eyes as he rolled his wheelchair out of Sly's way. "Regardless, if you see her tonight, try not to antagonize her too much."

Sly just smirked and hurried out to where their van was parked behind a dumpster. Nearly lost when they had hitched a ride to Arpeggio's blimp, the van was as much a part of their team as either Sly, Bentley, or Murray. So while Bentley was still healing under Murray's care, Sly had gone back to the frozen north to retrieve it.

What an adventure that had been. Sly still didn't like to talk about it, but what little he did let slip assured the others that it was an experience Sly was in no hurry to repeat. He still had the occasional numbness in his off hand from the frostbite he'd suffered, but it was getting fewer and further between.

The ride to the museum was silent, all three of them occupied with their own thoughts. Sly was trying hard not to bounce around, recognizing just how important this night was. But all the pent up energy over the last two months was just begging to be released. "Soon enough," he promised himself.

"We're here guys!" Murray said, pulling into a shadowed parking space not too close to the museum.

Sly nearly sprang out of his seat at that. "Are we going to set up a safehouse?"

"For a job this small Sly?" Bentley asked, amused. "Nah, this is just get in, get the statuette, and get out. Nothing fancy here."

Sly leaned on his cane as he regarded his turtle friend. "Not even a slideshow or anything?" he teased.

Bentley flushed as he adjusted his glasses. "Nope, nothing of the sort. Just find a good vantage point while I hack into the museum's security with my laptop. Fortunately it has a wireless network so I don't have to access an inner terminal. I'm uh...not quite ready to get back in the field."

"It'll happen," Sly promised, laying one hand on Bentley's shoulder in a show of support. "Time to get moving. Contact me on my binoc-u-com when it's safe to go. But don't take out anything on the inside of the museum; I want that pleasure for myself."

Bentley just sighed and shook his head. "All right, but I will be monitoring your progress. If I see you need help, then I'll act. But not before that, deal?"

"Deal," Sly said, opening the back door. "I'll wait on the roof for your signal." Sly charged out and slunk around the museum, looking for the best way up. A drainpipe led right up to the roof, but that way was too easy to work off all the energy that Sly had.

Sly chose instead to pull himself up to a first floor window. Crouching down, he leapt up to the window directly above it. From there he jumped to a protruding ledge and edged around it until his way was blocked by an oversized planter. Undeterred, Sly jumped on top of it, using his family's Ninja Spire Jump to land on one of the points of the planted cactus. He took a moment to gather himself and then sprang up, hooking his cane on the mouth of a gargoyle and swinging up to a higher ledge. That ledge was within easy reach of the roof, but Sly still hooked his cane on a hook in the wall and leaned back, using his strength and leverage to catapult himself on top of the roof.

Sly landed on a narrow wooden beam that had been left on the roof from some previous construction, his arms outstretched like a gymnast's upon dismount. "Thank you, thank you," he said, bowing to an imaginary audience. "For my next trick--" Sly cut off as his binoc-u-com started vibrating. Pulling it from his hip holster, he put it up to his eyes and activated it. "Yeah Bentley, I'm in position," he whispered into the microphone.

"Sly!" Bentley yelled, making Sly flinch. "We've got a problem! The museum's security system is down."

"And that is a problem...how?" Sly asked, confused.

Bentley's face on the binoc-u-com's screen grew drawn and worried. "Ordinarily it wouldn't be a problem," Bentley agreed. "But I'm not the one who took it down. It was hacked before we even got here!"

Sly's eyes lit up at Bentley's words. "Well well, looks like we might have a little competition on our hands. What say I find out who this other thief is and let him know that he's in our territory."

"Be careful Sly," Bentley warned. "We know nothing about this other thief or what he's capable of."

"Why Bentley, when am I not careful?" Sly asked with a smirk. "Over and out," he added, shutting off the binoc-u-com and stashing it away before Bentley could say anything more. He took a quick glance around the rooftop and saw a smashed vent. "Just the entrance I would take," he thought, running over and slipping inside.

Once he was inside the museum, it was easy to see someone had already been there. A few knocked out guards, some broken open doors and desks, and quite a few looted lockboxes. "Well, I'll say this for the guy," Sly thought as he hurried along the path of destruction, "he sure is thorough. I don't think he's missed a single thing."

Sly ran down to the main area of the museum, fully expecting to see some of the more expensive artwork stolen. But nothing was touched, not even the most expensive piece in the museum: a painting easily worth over fifty million dollars. Sly stared at the painting for a bit, trying to figure out why any other thief would just pass it by when the most unusual explanation worked its way through his mind. "No way," he murmured slowly, rushing off to where his statuette waited.

Or rather, where it had been waiting for him. The pedestal on which it had sat was bare, the glass that had been covering it expertly shattered with a single blow. But upon closer examination, the pedestal wasn't exactly bare. Laying on it was a raised card, fashioned in the shape of a fox's tail, and completely white. "What's this now?" Sly wondered aloud, picking up the card and examining it.

"That would be my calling card," a soft and sultry voice with a distinct French accent said from above him. Sly slowly looked up and his jaw dropped open at the sight that met his eyes.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. What a Woman!

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Chapter 3: What a Woman!

Sly was aware that his jaw had dropped open, but he couldn't muster up the muscle control needed to close it. Hanging from a chandelier directly above where "A Vixen's Lament" had been kept by a hooked cane similar to his own only pure white with a platinum hook, was one of the most beautiful vixen or woman he had ever seen, bar none. A skin-tight bodysuit, all in an ice blue, covered her from neck to toe. But because it was so tight, there was virtually nothing hidden from his view.

And what a view it was! Her body could easily rival Carmelita's in both form and tone, though this vixen would beat her out in both departments if he were completely honest with himself. A dark purple belt hung at an angle across her narrow hips with a holster that ostensibly held her cane. Gloves and knee-high boots in that same purple color complemented the bodysuit nearly perfectly.

When he was finally able to wrench his gaze above her neckline, his eyes widened even further. The fur that he could see of her neck and lower face was pure white, though what was under her jaw and down the center of her neck seemed a grey just three shades darker than white. Her lips were painted a rich indigo, the perfect blending of the ice blue and purple colors she wore on her body. Her cheeks were barely dusted with the same color, as if a fresh snowfall had just fallen into night's shadow.

The top half of her face was covered by a contoured mask done up in ice blue with dark purple eyes and ears. A peasant cap, much like his own except done in purple as well, lay perched on her head at the same angle that her belt lay across her hips, completing the ensemble.

"Well well," she veritably purred in that glorious accent of hers, the sound sending shivers through Sly's body. "The great Sly Cooper, speechless? And just from seeing little ol' me? Someone should alert the papers."

Sly forcibly blinked his eyes which had gone dry from staring. "You have me at a disadvantage," he said, injecting his usual swagger into his voice. "You know who I am, but I don't believe I've ever seen you before. And for this to be our first meeting is truly a terrible shame."

The vixen laughed softly at his words, a rich, throaty sound that seemed to resonate through every cell of his body. "You certainly are as charming as I've heard," she said, swaying gently back and forth as she held onto her cane. "You may refer to me as the Vixen. But as for who I am under the mask, that is a secret for me to know and for you to find out Monsieur Cooper."

Sly crossed his arms and tapped the hook of his cane against his cheek. "A challenge huh? Well, let it never be said that Sly Cooper was one to back down from a challenge, especially from a lovely lady like you."

A smirk settled on the Vixen's lips, something that Sly found quite fetching. "Then let the challenge begin," she breathed, taking the cap from her head and tossing it near an alarm sensor. While Sly looked on confused, she backflipped to the floor across the case from him and tapped the butt of her cane against the floor near her feet. At that instant, her cap exploded, triggering the alarm and activating the museum's security system. "Catch me if you can," she tossed over her shoulder as she turned away from him, reaching up to adjust the cap which had appeared back on her head.

"Wait a second!" Sly called as she dove headfirst into the now active hallway, avoiding the security laser beams like they weren't even there. Sly quickly followed, staying in her path except when a sweeping laser made him dodge to avoid getting fried. "She's fast," he thought cutting more sharply around a corner than she did to shave a couple seconds off her lead, "but not fast enough to get away from me."

When he'd almost caught up to her, about two levels above the ground floor, she jumped in the air and spun around, bringing her cane toward his head in a wide arc. Sly was able to dodge, but he dove a bit too far and found himself teetering on an exposed balcony with nothing to latch his cane onto to regain his balance. Just as he was about overbalance, he found her cane hooked around his foot, pulling him back to safety. "You'll have to be lighter on your feet than that if you want to impress me Sly," she teased, flicking the tip of her tail against his chest. "Now let's see what you can really do."

If Sly thought she was fast before, she was even faster now. No longer content with letting him catch up, she was now in full sprint, easily as fast as him if not a bit faster. But she didn't even lose a bit of her agility, avoiding the laser beams and any other traps as if they were standing still. "Who is she?" Sly wondered, finding himself hard-pressed to keep up with her. "She's definitely no ordinary thief."

The Vixen led Sly on a merry chase throughout the entire museum, pausing only briefly to taunt him if he ever fell back out of sight. The chase only ended once they reached the roof, and then she waited until they were near the edge that overlooked the building's entrance to turn around and face them. "Well done," she allowed, inclining her head to him ever so slightly. "You've definitely passed the first challenge. And quite impressively at that."

"Mind telling me what that was all about?" Sly demanded, reminded a little of the times he'd had to chase that traitor Neyla.

As if she could read his mind, the Vixen held up her hands defensively, the statuette tucked safely between her belt and her bodysuit. "Relax Sly," she said. "I just had to know if I was as good as I hoped I was. I've been keeping tabs on you for some time now, and there's no other way to really measure one's skills except against the best. And that, my dear raccoon, is you."

Sly stared at the Vixen for a moment before he relaxed his stance. "All right, I can buy that," he said. "But what did you mean that you've been keeping tabs on me? And how did you know I'd be here tonight?"

The Vixen pouted prettily, wagging one finger at him. "Now now, I'm not going to tell you everything tonight. That would ruin the game, and the fun has just started. You'll find everything out when the time comes. That is, if you're good enough to keep playing with me."

"Bring it on," Sly challenged.

She laughed again and Sly couldn't help but try to think of ways he could make her laugh again, so enchanting was the sound. "No need to worry about that," she said, walking toward Sly with a slow, sensual gait. "I always 'bring it.'"

Sly swallowed involuntarily but refused to step back from her advance. "Getting back to business," he said, glad his voice didn't crack, "you do realize that I can't let you leave with that."

The Vixen casually swiped her cane at Sly's which was tapping the statuette. "You do realize that you don't exactly 'let' me do anything," she returned, leaning down to be face-to-face with him. "However, because you've been such a good sport about this whole thing, I suppose I can give it to you if it means that much to you."

Sly watched her very carefully as she pulled the statuette from where it rested and held it out to him. Instead of reaching for it with his own hand, he swiped his cane at it, using his practiced technique to bring it safely into his possession. "I'm glad we could reach an agreement," he started to say, but he stopped when he found the hook of her cane around his neck.

"I never said I'd give it to you for free," she said, pulling him in and sealing her lips to his in a passionate kiss.

Sly stood for a few seconds, stunned by her boldness. This kiss was by no means unpleasurable, Sly even felt his knees go a bit weak from it. But before he could really get into it and return it, a bright searchlight was shined on them from the street below, making them jump apart. "Cooper!" he heard Carmelita yell, standing in the glare of the spotlight so that he could only see her in silhouette, "I should've known you were behind this. And you've got a new helper too? Well, just stay right there and I'll be up to haul both of you in."

Normally, Sly would have taken the opportunity to flirt with his lovely Carmelita, but he was still reeling from the kiss he'd received from the Vixen. The Vixen, however, showed no such effects. "Sly Cooper and Carmelita Fox in the same night!" she called down as she leaned casually over the roof's edge. "Looks like I can get a two-for-one."

"Who do you think you are?" Carmelita yelled, pulling her shock pistol from her holster and taking aim.

"I'm the Vixen," the masked fox said very simply. "I've already matched my skills against Sly, so why don't we see what I can do against you?" Without waiting for an answer, she slammed the butt of her cane against the roof, causing a cloud of smoke to surround both her and Sly.

That snapped Sly from his stupor. "How did you--" he began before having to dodge a shock pistol blast.

"Don't just stand there," the Vixen said, nudging him toward one of the other edges with her cane while taking off in the opposite direction. Sly thought about going after her, but quickly killed that thought when another shockbolt nearly singed his fur.

Falling back on his years of training, Sly leapt off the roof's edge and hooked his cane onto the fire escape. Instead of climbing down it though, he pushed off and flipped backward to land on a nearby dumpster, thankfully closed and recently emptied. From here it was a straight shot to where the van was waiting with Murray and Bentley, but Sly couldn't help taking a slightly more roundabout way to try and catch a glimpse of either Carmelita or the Vixen.

His hopes were rewarded when he saw the Vixen perched on the top of a flagpole, tossing a few barbed taunts at Carmelita. But instead of making her more careless, the taunts only served to make Carmelita's aim more precise. The Vixen, running out of ways to avoid the bolts, was forced to jump to another flagpole with a perfect Ninja Spire Jump and then Rail Slide away via a nearby power line. "Maybe she's been watching me closer then I thought," he mused, now a lot more interested in finding out about this Vixen, and not just for personal reasons.

He wasted no more time in returning to the van, diving through the open doors as soon as he was within range. "Let's get out of here," he said, closing the doors behind him and sitting down in a bit of a huff.

Bentley's eyebrows shot up at his friend's actions, and he couldn't help but make some kind of remark. "So Sly, did you find that she was too much for you?"

"Nothing of the sort," Sly said, propping his feet up and laying his cane down by his side. "After all, I am the one who walked away with..." His eyes widened as he reached for the statuette only to come up with one of the Vixen's calling cards. "Then again," he added with a rueful chuckle, "maybe she is. But how did you know our new thief was a she?"

Bentley simply reached into his pocket and handed Sly a handkerchief as Murray started up the van and drove off. "It was either that or worry about why you've started wearing lipstick."

Sly quickly wiped his lips with the handkerchief, sighing as he saw the white of it get smudged with indigo. "Bentley, I've only got one thing to say. What...a...woman!"

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Once is coincidence, twice is design

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Chapter 4: Once is coincidence, twice is design

Sly lay quietly in his bed, deep in thought as he stared at the white calling card in his hand. It was a situation he found himself in a lot over these past two weeks since the failed museum robbery. As much as he tried to avoid it, he couldn't stop thinking about this mysterious Vixen. Well, that wasn't exactly true. When he wasn't thinking about the Vixen, he was thinking about the ever lovely Carmelita.

Sly sighed and rolled over onto his stomach. The Vixen was an enigma to him, and he couldn't be sure if his attraction to her went beyond the physical and the allure of the unknown. Either way, he had to discover just how she'd learned some of his family's techniques. The Ninja Spire Jump and the Rail Slide/Rail Walk techniques could be learned by anyone with enough agility who watched him in action long enough, as she'd indicated she had. But the Exploding Hat Technique and the Smoke Bomb Escape? Those were specialty to his family line, and no amount of study could replicate them.

A snarl escaped Sly's lips as he tossed the Vixen's calling card onto his dresser and kipped up to his feet. All this thinking was giving him a headache. He needed a night of good action to clear his mind. Hopefully Bentley would have something planned for him to steal tonight. If not, then he just might have to go out on the prowl solo.

As soon as he left his room, Sly could hear two voices yelling loudly at each other. He immediately identified the voices as Bentley and Murray, but he was too far away to determine exactly what it was they were yelling about. Whatever it was, it couldn't be that good. Neither Bentley nor Murray were quick to anger, and to have them both angry at the same time meant that it was something serious. Sly sprinted down the stairs and quickly got in between his two friends. "Whoa whoa!" he said, wheeling Bentley's chair back a little so that he could keep them both at arms' length. "Would someone mind telling me exactly what this is all about?"

Bentley continued his staring contest with Murray until Sly moved so that the gaze was broken. "Nothing for you to worry about Sly," he said sullenly. "Just a slight difference of opinion as to what's best for this gang. Murray here doesn't think I'm ready to rejoin the field work, and I'm positive I am."

If Sly had been looking at Murray at that moment, he would've seen shock and surprise cross the hippo's face. But by the time Sly turned to look, Murray had forced his face to return to its normal, ever-so-slightly dopey look. "Now hold on a minute, Little Buddy," Murray said, "don't you think you're rushing it just a bit? I mean, if something goes wrong you could end up in a worse condition than you are now."

"You might be right, but the heist I've planned has to go down tonight, and Sly will need both of us to pull it off. There's just no other way to do this."

"Hey Bentley, if you're really not ready," Sly began, but Bentley waved him off with a glare. "OK, OK," Sly said instead, "if you really feel you're up to it, I won't try and hold you back. But you have to promise me to call it off if you find out you're not up to it.

"I can't do that Sly," Bentley protested. "What if you're caught in a compromising position? I can't and won't abandon you."

Sly smiled, thoroughly touched by his friend's loyalty. "Believe me," he said, putting his hand on Bentley's shoulder, "I understand how you feel. But it's because I understand that I don't want you putting yourself in any danger over me. I'll be able to find my way out of almost any situation. That's what I do."

Bentley held Sly's gaze for a moment before sighing and looking away. "All right, you win," he said reluctantly. "But it's up to me just when I can or cannot handle it."

"Sure thing Bentley," Sly agreed, way too easily if Bentley thought about it. But Bentley just concerned himself with readying themselves for tonight's heist. As soon as Bentley's back was turned, Sly backed up next to Murray. "If he tries to do too much," he whispered to his large and powerful friend, "you know what to do."

Murray nodded, rubbing his hands together. "On it Sly. You can count on me."

Time seemed to pass quickly that night and it was midnight before Sly and his friends were in position at a nearby port on the Seine. Sly was perched on a tall building, scanning the area below with his binoc-u-com. "You're right Bentley," he whispered, "there's way too much security here for this to be an ordinary late night shipment."

"Disregarding the fact that I'm never wrong," Bentley said wryly, "I just knew that no reputable businessman would come to this port at this time of night. This unassuming little dinghy is registered to one Duarte Agosto Campíon, one of Brazil's most notorious smugglers. He's travelled all over Central and South America, looting all the old Mayan and Incan treasures that he somehow has a knack for finding, especially if they happen to be in someone's collection already."

"And now he's looking to fence them in my backyard? I don't think so. So, what does this guy look like? I want to make sure to pay him a visit."

"No one really knows for sure. All they know is that he's pretty huge, at least as tall as Murray and by all accounts wider, and that's saying something."

"Hey," Murray interjected over his own binoc-u-com, "'The Murray' is simply very big boned. All the easier to Thunderflop the villains with."

Sly nodded to himself, getting caught up in the excitement of the job. Though he didn't consciously realize it, this was the first time in two weeks that his thoughts weren't consumed with either Carmelita or the Vixen. "All right guys," he said, "let's stick to the--what in the...!"

"Sly?" Bentley asked, sounding a bit worried and looking the same way through the small picture on the binoc-u-com's screen. "What's wrong? What's going on?"

Sly focused the binoc-u-com on what appeared to be no more than an ice blue dot off in the distance and zoomed in on it. "What is she doing here?" Sly wondered as the dot assumed the familiar form of the Vixen. "She's going to ruin everything."

Bentley was silent a moment and Sly just knew that he was figuring out a way to salvage the operation. "Sly, you have to get over there and take her out of the equation in some way."

Whatever Sly was going to say never made it out of his mouth as he saw the Vixen leap from her hiding spot and knock out a gun-toting guard from behind by uppercutting him into the air with her cane and slamming him down on the ground. "Change of plans Bentley," Sly muttered. "You and Murray fall back to the van. I have to stop her from getting herself killed." He saw Bentley open his mouth to argue so he shut of the binoc-u-com and stashed it away.

Sly leapt from the roof of the building to a nearby clothesline. He kept his eyes on her the whole time he approached her, grudgingly appreciative of how she took down the various reptilian guards with ease. But as he paused on the roof above her, he could've sworn he saw the air behind her shimmer slightly. "Look out!" he called as a lizard appeared out of nowhere, his spear raised and ready to strike.

The Vixen whirled around, ramming the tip of her cane into the gut of the lizard, forcing him into the river. "Fichu chameleons," she muttered under her breath, swiping her cane through the air to aceentuate her frustration. She raised the tip of her cane in salute to Sly before running off toward the boat. She'd only gotten a couple steps when Sly jumped down in front of her, blocking her way. "Is there something I can help you with?" she asked, smirking ever so slightly at him.

"You can tell me what you were thinking," Sly hissed in a fierce whisper. "From everything I've heard, this guy is no one you want to mess with, especially on your own. Get out of here before you get caught."

From how her mask moved, Sly could tell that her eyebrows had narrowed in anger. "Who do you think you are telling me what to do?" she demanded, poking him in the chest with the butt of her cane. "I thought I showed I could more than keep up with you back at the museum."

"That was in the museum," Sly shot back, shoving her cane away with his. "This is the real world, and the criminals here won't think twice about killing you in many painful ways. So get out of here before you get hurt."

"I'm so touched that you care," she said, "but I am a big girl if you hadn't noticed. I can take care of myself."

"That won't be necessary," a rumbling voice with a heavy Portuguese accent said from a nearby alleyway, making them both whirl around with their canes raised. "I can promise that I will see you both taken care of."

Sly's mouth gaped open slightly at the large figure that advanced out of the shadows. Large didn't even begin to describe him. He would've towered over Murray and his face looked like some odd cross between a guinea pig and a hippo. Thick, shaggy fur covered his entire pudgy body and all he wore was a pair of construction boots. "Now that is one ugly rat," the Vixen said in an undertone, and Sly could only agree with her assessment.

The rodent before them punched a wall hard enough to crumble some bricks. "Duarte Agosto Campíon is not a rat!" he said through clenched teeth. "I am the finest capybara to ever come out of Sao Paolo, Brasil!"

"Any idea what a capybara is?" Sly asked, glancing at the Vixen out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, an overgrown rat," she growled, the muscles in her arms and legs tensing while her tail stuck out straight behind her, the fur on it standing on end.

Duarte's grey eyes were as cold and hard as stone as he glared at them. "You shall pay for your impertinence. Kill them."

Sly whirled around as he heard a number of...somethings hit the ground all around them, placing his back against the Vixen's. "It's those chameleons again," he hissed, peering around for the telltale shimmer that would give away their location. But no sooner had he found one that all the lights in the immediate area shut off, making it impossible to see more than a couple feet. "Just perfect," he muttered before being dropped to his knees by what felt like a knee to his gut.

"Pull it together Ringtail," the Vixen snarled, hauling Sly back to his feet. "You should be able to take these guys out blindfolded so being blinded by the darkness is no difference."

Sly's eyes narrowed before a thought occurred to him. "They may be invisible, but they're not quiet," he whispered, putting up his cane to stop an attack that he'd heard coming.

"Good thinking," the Vixen said with a smile. "Follow my lead." She spun her cane around above her head and swiped it at the air in front of her. But though the strike didn't land, they could both hear the chameleon leaping back to land about five feet away.

Sly made a few half-hearted swipes in front of him, more to keep the ones in front of him honest than anything else. But when the Vixen made another strike that missed, he sprang into action. He sprinted in the direction that she'd swung, cane leading the way. No sooner had that still invisible chameleon landed than he found Sly's cane buried in his gut. The force of the strike literally knocked the chameleon back into being visible. With that ever-present Cooper smirk, he popped his hips and sent the chameleon flying over both himself and the Vixen to land in a heap on the ground. Suddenly visible were the two chameleon that the thrown one had landed one; now all three were unconscious.

Sly took a moment to congratulate himself and had to suddenly duck as the Vixen launched herself over him to take out a chameleon that had been sneaking up on him. "Celebrate after we're done," she scolded, moving so that she was back-to-back with him again.

Sly forced himself to focus on the task at hand and soon there were ten chameleons on the ground unconscious or nearly so. "Where's the fat rat?" he asked, looking around for the absent Duarte.

"He must've gone back to the ship," the Vixen said, moving cautiously toward the ship with Sly right beside her. "Think he'll have more guards with him?"

"I can't think he'd be stupid enough to risk his entire force at once," Sly pointed out. "But then, I've seen it more than once."

The Vixen nodded sharply, the corner of her lips twitching slightly. "So tell me Cooper," she said as they walked up the gangway, "what was going on back there? I know you're not normally that sloppy."

"Yeah well, normally I don't have to worry about anyone but myself. And it's been a while since I've been in a fight like that. I'm allowed to have a little rust."

"Not if you want to stay alive you don't. Maybe you should leave the jobs like this to the big girls."

Sly grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him, his jaw set in anger. "Now look, I've been doing jobs like this before you even thought about putting that costume of yours on. You came here without backup of any kind and wrecked the plans my team worked on with your recklessness. Don't you even begin to think that you're better than me just because you got lucky once."

"I'd rather be lucky than good," the Vixen started to say, but she got grabbed from behind and thrown into the wall of the ship's cabin before she could finish.

"While I hate to interrupt this lovers' quarrel," Duarte said, reaching out to grab Sly by the throat and missing, "I insist that you both leave my ship immediately and by the most watery way possible."

Sly spared a glance at the Vixen, returning his attention to Duarte as soon as he saw her moving and apparently uninjured. He leapt forward, swinging his cane overhead, but Duarte blocked the strike with one meaty forearm. Before Sly even landed he found himself trapped in Duarte's arms, the air being squeezed out of him.

"Let him go!" the Vixen yelled, tapping her cane against the ground, making the platinum hook crackle with electricity. She ran forward, jamming it into the back of Duarte's neck. The capybara dropped Sly and swung behind him with a roar of pain, but the Vixen wasn't even in reach at this time. "You all right Ringtail?" she called, trying to circle around to him.

But Duarte was having none of that, making sure to keep himself between Sly and the Vixen so that they couldn't get their act together. "I will crush your insignificant bodies between my own two hands," he swore, rushing at the Vixen, trying to pin her against the wall.

The Vixen was too quick for that and easily dodged out of the way. But she didn't dodge far enough and found herself sent flying by a hard backhand. She fell in a heap near Sly, but soon struggled back to her feet. "Any ideas Cooper?" she asked, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her glove.

"Just one," he said, jumping up and seating himself on her shoulder. A startled cry uttered from her mouth, along with a few French invectives, but she was able to support his weight. He lowered his cane so that she could see the tip of it glowing orange with stored energy. "Catching on?" he asked, raising his cane back up to hold it at the ready.

"I love the way you think," she said, holding her cane up similar to how Sly was holding his as yellow energy gathered at the tip. As Duarte rushed them, she spun around, holding her cane parallel to the ground just as she knew Sly was doing. The double Spin Attack caught Duarte in the knees and the throat, sending the overlarge rodent reeling.

Sly hopped down before he could recover, tapping his cane against the ground to build up an electric charge in the hook much as the Vixen had to save him earlier. The Vixen mirrored his actions and on an unspoken command they both leapt forward, thrusting their canes into Duarte's chest.

Duarte tried to scream his pain, but the electricity coursing through his body had temporarily paralyzed his vocal cards along with most of the other muscles in his body. When the attacked ended, he pitched forward onto his face with a groan, his eyes rolled so far in back of his head that the irises could hardly be seem.

The Vixen prodded the still body with her cane, letting out the breath she was holding only when he didn't stir. "Well, that wasn't too bad," she said, tucking some platinum blonde ringlets of hair that had gotten knocked loose in the fight back under her mask.

Sly just shook his head. "If that wasn't too bad, I'd hate to see what you consider bad," he quipped as he found some rope and hogtied Duarte to make sure he didn't get away. "Come on, we've got some stolen artifacts to find."

It turned out to be easy to find Duarte's cache of artifacts. Because the dinghy was so small, there were only a limited number of places it could be, and the first place they checked was the correct one. "Hey Bentley," he said, pulling out his binoc-u-com and using it to scan the treasure hold, "can you point out to me which of these actually belong to someone?"

"I could," Bentley said slowly, "but I don't know why I should. I thought you aborted this mission. So what's the big deal?"

"Hey, that was the plan," Sly protested. "It's not my fault our uninvited guest is such a stubborn little--"

"A stubborn little what?" the Vixen inquired archly. "And just who are you talking to?"

"I was going to say 'a stubborn little lady,'" Sly said dryly, "but you are making me reconsider my choice of words. As for who I'm talking to, you should know if you've watched me as much as you say you have."

The Vixen's indigo-painted lips pressed together in a hard, thin line. "I thought the game was for you to find out about me, not the other way around," she said in a quiet voice that held an edge of danger to it.

"Thieves don't always play by the rules," Sly reminded her as he saw red and green holomarkers pop up in his binoc-u-com's viewer. "But I think we can play your game at least a little while longer. Now then Bentley," he continued, speaking to his friend now, "is it safe to assume the green ones are unclaimed?"

"That would be correct Sly," Bentley agreed. "Duarte could've made a fortune off of those artifacts alone. But because he doesn't exactly want to pay taxes, he wasn't going to let any government know he had them. They're safe to take."

Sly methodically separated the artifacts into two separate piles, one claimed and one unclaimed. "Feel free to take your pick from this pile," he said to the Vixen, indicating the pile on the right, "but only from that pile and only one."

"I have no interest in choosing something that was pre-owned," she muttered, sifting through the pile with her cane. She reached down to take an inscribed gold ring, but it was gone before she could take it. "Hey!"

Sly just smirked at her as he pocketed the ring. "Did I forget to mention I have first choice?" he asked innocently.

The Vixen's expression remained calm, but he could just tell she was seething inside. She snatched up an amulet at random and stormed outside, leaving Sly to follow her after dropping her calling card beside his. "That wasn't very nice," she said when she could hear him walking behind her.

"Sorry about that, but this ring is already destined for one vixen's finger, and I'm sorry to say that it's not yours."

The Vixen whirled around so suddenly that Sly thought for sure she was going to strike at him but she did no such thing. "Carmelita Fox I assume?" she asked in a growl, gripping the railing of the gangway tightly. "I swear, I don't see what the attraction is for you."

Sly couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Don't worry, my friends can't either. But what can I do? I mean, I'm drawn to her like nothing I've ever felt before. And I'm pretty sure she feels the same way. I just have to convince her that she does."

The Vixen couldn't help but laugh at that. "You truly are one of a kind Sly Cooper," she said, lightly tickling the underside of his chin with her finger. "But you know, a girl could get kinda jealous, what with all I'm doing to get your attention and here you are talking about another woman. Especially since I need no convincing."

Sly tried to chuckle, but couldn't deny that he felt like a deer in the headlights. Now that he wasn't concerned about his safety nor hers, he found himself remembering the single kiss that they'd shared, and yearning for a repeat performance. "Well, you certainly have my attention now," he whispered softly, standing up on his tiptoes and leaning toward her. The Vixen let her hand trail around to the back of Sly's neck as she tilted her head for another kiss, but their moment was interrupted by the wailing of police sirens.

The Vixen snarled quite loudly at the sound. "This is becoming a habit," she growled, turning around to face the oncoming police cars. Sly saw her grip on her cane tighten as she saw the police cars being led by a familiar red convertible. "She is always butting in on our time together. Maybe I'll have to have a little 'talk' with her."

"Now hold on a minute," he said, ignoring the police cars. "You're not going to do anything to her."

The Vixen turned her head just slightly to look at him. "You're right, I won't. Tonight anyway because I don't want to ruin the night. But if she interrupts us again, and there will be an 'again,' I refuse to be held responsible."

"Freeze you two!" Carmelita yelled as she stopped her car about one hundred feet away. It was too far to see her face clearly, but there was no way Sly would ever mistake that voice and her hair for anyone else. "I'm busting you both down to Interpol right now, so no funny business."

Sly just sighed, he'd heard this many times before. "Now Carmelita," he said, taking a few slow steps toward her, "you really might want to reconsider that. I mean, I've just left a lovely present for you all gift-wrapped inside. And it's horrible etiquette to arrest someone who is giving you a gift."

"I don't take presents from criminals," Carmelita said, firing a shock bolt at his feet to back him up.

"Then would would you call it when I presented you with all those criminals for you to arrest in the past couple years?"

"Doing my job," Carmelita answered simply. "And I'll be more than happy to do that to you as well."

The banter was cut off by the Vixen stepping in front of Sly. "Sorry," she said, her voice hard as steel, "but if he's going anywhere he'll be going there with me."

"Now ladies," Sly said calmly, trying to be the peacemaker, "there's plenty of me to go around."

All was silent for a heartbeat, then all hell broke loose. The Vixen spun around and struck Sly flush in the back with her cane, sending him airborne. At the same moment, Carmelita shot him with her shock pistol, sending him flying a few blocks to tumble bonelessly down a street. "Well, at least I'm out of there," he said, picking himself up off the ground.

After regaining full control of his body, he found that he'd landed very near to where the van was stashed. "Let's roll," he yelled as he jumped into the back of the van.

Murray sped off as soon as Sly gave the word, racing off into the night. "OK Sly," he said, keeping his eyes on the road, "spill it, what happened back there?"

"You'll find out soon enough Murray," Sly promised. "For now, I have to drop by Interpol to leave this lovely ring on..." Sly groaned in frustration and anger when all he found in his pocket was the amulet that he'd thought the Vixen had taken. "She switched on me again!"

Bentley regarded Sly calmly while he continued to rant and rave. "You know Sly," he said when his friend had to stop for air, "she's only doing this to get a rise out of you."

"Yeah well it's working," Sly said heatedly, looking for all the world like he wanted to punch something. "And I don't like it at all."

"And just how is this different from what you do to Carmelita?" Bentley asked in a controlled, almost monotone voice.

Sly had to take a moment to think about that answer. "When I do it, it's cute," he said. "For her, it was at first, but now it's quickly getting annoying.

"But if she wants to be annoying," he continued, the smirk returning to his face as a positively devilish idea occurred to him, "we can do that. Maybe it's time for her to play my game instead of the other way around."

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Changing the Rules of the Game

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Author's Note: I know this one took a while, but my best friend and oftentimes co-author Francis Tolbert had to go in the hospital for what was supposed to be three days. He was in for three weeks. And he's at home, still recovering so my time has been tight. I'll try to pick the pace back up. No promises though. And here's a thank you to my friend Andrea Sapinski for helping me research all the Spanish curses in this chapter.

Chapter 5: Changing the rules of the Game

Sly punched and kicked the hell out of the heavy bag in front of him, the padding on his fists and feet only allowing him to hit harder and harder. His movements were a blur as he pushed himself even harder. Jab. Kick. One-two combination. Spinning backfist. Punch-grab-knee. His mind was so totally focused on the bag in front of him that he didn't hear the door open.

Murray watched Sly with mute interest. It had been about a month since the incident at the docks, and Sly had been training himself non-stop. It was like he was obsessed with getting back to the top of his form, and maybe beyond it. The old Sly never used his fists nor his feet offensively, always relying on his cane to do the damage. And while his strikes weren't strong enough to damage someone like him, Sly was definitely showing he had what it took to be a scrappy little fighter.

Murray glanced over to the corner where Sly's cane stood propped against the wall. As good as Sly was becoming hand-to-hand, he was still that much better with his cane. He'd gone above and beyond any level Murray had ever seen him at, including what he'd reached when fighting either Clockwerk or Clock-La. He'd even managed to reclaim some of his lost thieving skills, especially the ability to walk invisibly. There were even signs he was looking to develop his own signature move to add to the Thievius Raccoonus.

Murray sighed as he moved from the doorway into the workout room. It was obvious why Sly was pushing himself: the Vixen. Sly was always at his best when he had something to strive for, something that had been missing since the defeat of Clock-La. And while Murray was against everything the Vixen did to Sly, he couldn't deny the good that was coming out of it.

"Hey Murray," Sly called, shaking Murray from his thoughts, "are you going to stand there all day or are you here to work out?"

"Huh?" Murray asked, forgetting where he was for the moment. "Oh, sure Sly. Just let me know when you're done. 'The Murray' has a little frustration he needs to work off."

Sly grabbed the towel that Murray was holding and used it to wipe some sweat from his face. "I'm done now," he said, tossing the towel onto his shoulder. "Do you know where Bentley is? I need to talk with him."

Murray adjusted his gloves before he answered Sly. "He's downstairs on his laptop. I think he's talking to one of his Thiefnet buddies. Something about getting new gear for the next heist."

"Thanks pal," Sly said. He started to leave, but then a sneaky thought occurred to him, one that he couldn't just let go. He silently crept behind Murray, who was focusing on the heavy bag, twisting the towel between his hands. Just when Murray reared back to throw his first punch, Sly whipped the towel forward, striking Murray right on his unprotected rump. Murray yelped in surprised pain, jumping off the floor so high Sly thought he might actually touch the ceiling for a moment.

"SLY!" Murray roared, rounding on his friend only to see the tip of his striped tail disappearing through the doorway. "That's it!" Murray muttered, punching the bag so hard he nearly broke the chains holding it in place. "Any sympathy I felt for Sly is done! Now he deserves exactly what he's getting!"

Sly chuckled as he pulled up the trapdoor to the hideout's "basement." After Bentley was forced into his wheelchair, he couldn't get up the stairs to his old bedroom as often as he wanted. And Bentley had adamantly refused to leave his computer equipment in the living room where he just knew it would become everything from clothes racks to food holders. So with a little planning and ingenuity, and a lot of Murray's brawn, they'd excavated an underground cave and set Bentley's equipment up where it could be safe from the horrors of Murray's eating.

"Hey Bentley!" Sly called as he slid down the rampway that they had installed for Bentley's wheelchair.

"I'm down here Sly," Bentley said, typing furiously away at his laptop. "Still searching for the equipment needed to pull off some of your trickiest maneuvers. But don't worry, I haven't given up hope yet."

Sly just shook his head as he came up behind his friend. There were a lot of things in the Thievius Raccoonus that Sly could not duplicate with the technology of today. The items needed had to be made both by hand and of rare materials. Not something easily accessible in a time when everything was manufactured by machines and as cheaply as possible.

"Keep up the good work," Sly said, clapping Bentley on the shoulder. "But that wasn't what I came down here to talk to you about. What's our next heist?"

Bentley stared at Sly's reflection in one of the darkened computer monitors and smiled. "That eager to try and get ahead of the Vixen are we?" he asked, his eyebrows arching behind his glasses. "Well, it doesn't matter. Our next job will be the summer house of one of the most notorious armored car thieves in this hemisphere."

"Sounds like a good one. So what's the next one?"

"The next one?" Bentley asked, wheeling around to stare at Sly in more than a little confusion. "Why would you want to know about that one?"

Sly squatted down and smiled as he looked Bentley in the eye. "The Vixen wants to play games? Let's play games. But I'm changing the rules. If she knows me as well as she says she does, then she knows where this next heist is supposed to be. But there's no way she could possibly think that I'd skip an entire heist just to throw her off. And that's just what I'm going to do. And we're going to do this job tonight."

"B-but we can't do that!" Bentley sputtered. "You know how much time and effort goes into planning a job. I can't just switch gears like that."

Sly's eyes glinted in a way that could only be described as evilly. "I have the utmost faith in you Bentley. You've never let me down before."

Bentley tried to stare Sly down for only a moment before sighing and turning away. "If we're going to do this I'm going to need absolute quiet until we leave," Bentley said heavily. "And as much as you hate doing it, I'm going to need you to do recon for me. It's the only way I can put together something as grand as I had hoped for your fourth heist on such short notice. And I'll have to get us some plane tickets."

"Plane tickets?" Sly asked, intrigued.

Bentley nodded, adjusting his glasses as he started typing on his laptop again. "Indeed. Our fourth, or rather now our third heist will take place in nearby Spain. A bank has just opened promising high interest savings accounts and low interest credit to all their customers. But the only reason they can make good on their promises is because the bank is just a front for a money laundering operation by a rogue offshoot of the Spanish Mafia."

Sly let out a low whistle as he sat back on his haunches. "Spanish Mafia? Isn't that a little dangerous? I don't want to bring something like that down on our heads."

"Give me a little credit here Sly," Bentley said over his shoulder. "I meant it when I said these guys are rogue. While this operation might be quite lucrative, it didn't exactly have permission to get started. The lady in charge is on the outs with her superiors because she might be a threat to their power."

"So taking her down cuts off a funding source for the darker side of the crime world and prevents a possibly deadly gang war," Sly said, following Bentley's reasoning. "And any ill-gotten gains that just happen to disappear would be best served supporting a much more worthy organization, like the Happy Campers Orphanage."

"You took the words right out of my mouth," Bentley said, turning back to his laptop. "Now leave me alone or I'll never be able to do what I need to." Sly nodded excitedly and ran back up the ramp. There were only a few hours left until sundown and if they were making this kind of trip he needed to make sure they were packed.

The hardest thing was convincing Murray to leave his "baby" behind and get on the plane. Murray would not be swayed; if the van didn't go, he didn't go. Fortunately, Bentley found a cargo plane that was heading to Madrid that was big enough to take the van. And since it was operated by one of Bentley's Thiefnet friends, it was a simple matter to make the arrangements.

The downside was that it took far longer to arrange than Sly would have liked. Instead of starting the heist that night, they weren't even able to set up a safehouse until the next afternoon. The delay had him chomping at the bit, pacing around like a caged animal. When the sun went down that day, he was out the door before the others even saw him go.

Sly was in the area of the bank before he pulled his vibrating binoc-u- com off his hip and turned it on. "Yeah Bentley?" he asked, bringing it up to his eyes. "What's going on?"

"Sly!" Bentley fairly screeched, making Sly wince as the high pitched sound grated on his ears. "What were you thinking taking off like that? I haven't even told you what I need you to take pictures of yet."

"So I'll take pictures of everyone and everything I see. Are we even sure she'll be here tonight?"

"From the records I have, Señorita Rosalita Mofeta doesn't just work in the bank, she lives in it. Or rather, she runs the bank from her home."

Sly stared at the sturdy marble structure through his binoc-u-com. "Some home," he quipped.

"Yes well it didn't always look like this," Bentley pointed out. "This home had been in Ms. Mofeta's family for more than a few generations, and usually served as a front of some kind or other. But she is the first to completely change the look of it in this manner. Underneath all that marble and concrete is still the original house. And therein lies our way in.

"If you'll zoom in on the roof of the building," Bentley continued, "you can see a trio of doors. One of them leads into the house proper."

"And the other two?" Sly asked, eyeing the red, black, and purple doors in turn.

Bentley could be heard clearing his throat nervously. "No one who has ever entered those doors has ever been seen again."

"And you're going to tell me you know which door I enter, right?" Sly asked hopefully.

"Do you doubt my abilities?" Bentley asked, sounding quite affronted. "Even with the severe lack of time you've given me, I was able to dig up the original blueprints for the work done on the house. The correct door is the red door."

"Makes sense," Sly said after a moment's thought. "Most would be intruders would avoid the red door. OK, so what should I take pictures of?"

"Well, I don't think we'll be able to get in the same way twice. You'll have to find an alternate way in. The odds are she has at least one safe of some kind in her hideout. If you can locate where that might be, taking pictures of it would help me figure out how to crack it. I'm sure she has a bunch of security guards patrolling the grounds. Get me a picture of each type of guard and I can work out the right way to avoid or defeat them."

"Would you like a picture of the curtains and the dinette set as well?"

Bentley frowned at Sly through the binoc-u-com's viewer. "Just go to work," he said, cutting the connection before Sly could make a comeback.

"Isn't he in a good mood?" Sly muttered with his smirk in place. It was absolutely no trouble to reach the roof; there was a regulation fire escape that he was able to clamber up. The lack of guards on the roof worried him ever so slightly, but not enough to stop him from approaching the door and opening it. He was surprised that no alarm went off, but chalked it up to supreme overconfidence.

Sly peered through the dimly lit doorway, his cane at the ready. He was disappointed to once again find no guards or even traps, just a rather plain looking spiral staircase leading down into the darkened passage. "It's one thing to be overconfident," he thought, stepping lightly on the top step to make sure it wouldn't turn the whole staircase into a sliding ramp, "but it's something else completely to be reckless. She's almost begging for someone to come down there and stop her. Far be it for me to--"

Sly never got the chance to finish as he was struck in the back of his head and sent headfirst through the door. Due solely to his thief relfexes, he was able to tuck into a ball and roll, not fall, down the lengthy staircase until he found the bottom. But his momentum didn't stop there, and he carried through a hidden door into some sort of room, coming to rest seated against a wall on the opposite side of that room.

It took Sly a few seconds to shake off the dizziness his roll down the stairs had caused, but when he did he immediately wished he hadn't. The first thing he noticed when his mind cleared was that the room he had tumbled into was actually a medium-sized bathroom with all the modern amenities and done entirely in black tile and white porcelain. The second thing he noticed was that he was not alone.

Seated in the bathtub, surrounded by bubbles that came up just high enough to preserve her modesty, was a very beautiful female skunk who was staring at him with a look of shock that Sly could only imagine was mirrored on his own face. Her long white hair was pinned up on top of her head to keep it out of the water and just the barest hint of makeup brightened her black- furred cheeks. Her lips shone either from a black lipstick or a simple lip gloss; Sly couldn't tell which. But it wasn't hard to figure out that this was Señorita Rosalita Mofeta.

As Sly watched, Señorita Mofeta's look slowly changed to something far less shocked as something far more predatory gleamed in her violet eyes. "Well well," she said, her voice low and husky as her deep Spanish accent caused the words to roll off her tongue. "It appears that one of my admirers has chosen the correct door for a change. I suppose a reward is in order." Normally, Sly would've said something quite flirty given the situation, but what happened next caused the words to die before they even reached his tongue.

Acting as if she did this regularly, Rosalita simply stood up, revealing her completely nude and quite luscious body to Sly's suddenly wide-eyed stare. Her fur was nearly flat against her skin; nothing was hidden from his gaze. A small line of bubbles started from her collarbone to travel between her full and perky breasts, down her nearly flat stomach, skirting the triangular patch of white hair between her thighs that stood out sharply against her ebony fur to trail down one of her long legs to join the one that remained in the tub. And Sly's eyes followed those bubbles from the beginning of their journey to the end, unable to look anywhere else.

Rosalita smiled, knowing full well the effect her body had on men. It had been far too long since she'd slept with a man; all of those she met in her line of work were simply not interesting to her. Always falling over themselves to curry her favor or that of her family, they disgusted her. But this one, the first one in months to pick the correct door, intrigued her from the moment she laid eyes on him. And with all the sexual frustration that had been building in her body, she was going to show him a night, morning, and day that he would never forget.

Sly could only stare at the beautiful skunk as she stepped out of the tub and started walking toward him with a slow and sensual gait. He tried to get his body to move, but it refused to follow his orders. "Come on," he ordered himself as the distance between them gradually lessened, "I have to use my head. Not that one!" he hissed through gritted teeth as he felt his body react to her overt sexual advances.

Anyone who was witness to this except his two most trusted friends would be confused. They would ask themselves, "What is going on here? This isn't the first gorgeous woman that Sly has interacted with. I bet he's even slept with the majority of them. What's the deal?" But Bentley and Murray would know better because they knew one secret that the rest of the world would never believe: Sly Cooper was a virgin.

That's right. Sly Cooper was still a virgin. Despite all his flirty chit-chat and complete self assurance when dealing with members of the fairer sex, the furthest Sly had ever gotten with any female was a gentle kiss on the lips. And even then, the number of women he had kissed like that could be counted on one hand. The infamous "Cooper charm" which he could turn on and off at will was purely instinctive and genetic, handed down from parent through child throughout the entire Cooper bloodline.

Sly had managed to gather some of his wits together by the time she was halfway to him, but all his effort went for naught as soon as she dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl toward him. He tried valiantly not to let his eyes lock onto her gently swaying breasts, but it was a losing battle. He tried to press back against the wall as if he could disappear through the wall and escape as Rosalita began to crawl up his body.

A soft scent tickled his nose, some mixture of tropical fruits and spices that only made him more aware of just how close her body was to his. She paused with her face only an inch from his and Sly nearly let out a sigh of relief. But when he saw the look in her eyes, the one that said she was merely savoring the anticipation of the first kiss, he knew that he was in trouble. And when she lowered her eyelids halfway and puckered her lips as she tilted her head toward his, he knew that all hope was lost. Her lips just barely brushed against his, letting him taste her blackberry lip gloss before she pulled back and looked him in the eyes. Liking what she saw there, she smirked knowingly and moved in for a longer and far more satisfying kiss.

"What is going on here?"

Sly had never been so happy to hear that French accented voice, even if it was a little screechy at the moment. He took full advantage of Rosalita's distraction to slither out from underneath her and scoot away to an adjacent wall. Rosalita, however, paid this no mind as she twisted to her feet and turned to glare at the newest intruder to her bathroom. "It is none of your business what is going on here," she spat at the Vixen, pulling a fluffy pink bathrobe from a nearby hook and throwing it on. "Leave this place now and leave us to our business."

The Vixen's lips twisted into a snarl, her teeth baring slightly in her contempt. "There is one slight problem with that," she said, her white tail lashing behind her. "You see, that is my raccoon. And his only business is with me."

Rosalita laughed, the cruel sound making Sly's fur stand on end. "I think you are quite mistaken," she said, all the sensuality in her voice replaced by an ice-cold blade's edge. "Trust me, he will enjoy doing business with me a lot more than with a contemptible puta."

The Vixen's masked eyes widened and then narrowed in anger. "You dare to call me a puta? I would say it takes one to know one, but that would be disrespecting putas everywhere, especially coming from una chucha patética."

Sly was taken aback as the Spanish slur that left the Vixen's lips so easily. The thing that truly surprised him though was the fact that Rosalita and the Vixen were hurling insults at each other nonstop in Spanish. Sly knew some rudimentary Spanish, but not enough to understand everything that was being said. But the tone of their voices and the expressions on their faces told the story well enough.

After one particularly blistering comment by Rosalita, the Vixen was seething; her body was literally trembling in anger. "You jodido coño!" she screamed, snapping her jaws at the skunk before her.

Rosalita gasped and took a step back. No one had ever dared to speak with her in such a fashion before, and she found it very much not to her liking. But all the vitriol she had spewed during the arguement had drained her anger, leaving only a cool and calculated calmness. "I'm tired of playing these childish games," she said, reaching into a pocket of her bathrobe. "This ends now."

Sly was moving before he even realized it, his cane coming up to knock the gun that Rosalita had just drawn out of her hand and into the bathtub. Both ladies looked at him in shock as if having forgotten that he was even there. But when Rosalita's eyes fell on the cane Sly held, her lips curled in distaste. "Sly Cooper," she said, edging her way toward the door. "I should have known. I don't know what you came here for, but you will not be leaving. Guards!" she yelled, throwing open the door and running through it.

Sly started to go after her but was forcibly stopped as his arm was hooked by the Vixen's cane. "What was the big idea?" she demanded, spinning him around. "I could've handled her without your help."

"Oh really?" Sly asked, not believing her for a moment. "Then would you mind explaining to me why you didn't notice her drawing a gun? Or was I just imagining things?"

"I don't need your help!" she yelled, taking a swipe with her cane at his head, which was easily ducked. "And what the hell was going on here?" she added, backflipping out of the way of his attack. "Do you take any offer you get?"

"You think you know so much about me," Sly said, circling the Vixen as she circled him. "If you really knew me, you would never even ask that question."

"I thought I did! But then you decided to go and switch heists on me. I was sure you'd be in the southern hemisphere around now. If I hadn't gotten a tip about your flight, I would've never figured out that you were switching up on me."

While they fought, Rosalita ran to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. "Come into my house will they?" she muttered as she dressed herself in what she termed "combat gear," form fitting vest and pants done up in green camouflage with a thick pair of black boots to complete the outfit. "I'll show them that no one toys with a Mofeta and escapes unscathed."

With all her clothes in place, she stormed over to her closet and opened up a secret compartment in the back. The concealed nook was filled with every single type of handgun, rifle, and shotgun imaginable. With practiced ease, she methodically chose a number of guns and strapped them to her body where they could be most easily accessed. When she felt she had enough, she filled her pockets with various clips and boxes of ammunition. "Now let's see how they deal with me," she growled, placing a clip of armor piercing bullets in each of the guns she held and cocking them.

She kicked open her door and charged out into the hallway, fully expecting to see her guards engaged in a battle to the death against Sly Cooper and his companion. What she saw instead stopped her in her tracks. Her elite guard force, a volatile mixture of badgers and wolverines, had pulled up a bunch of chairs and were just watching as they tried to beat the Hell out of each other and her house. "¿Qué occurió?" she demanded, pistol whipping a couple guards in the back of their heads. "Why are you not trying to stop them?"

"We have tried señorita," the captain of her guards, a middle-aged badger, protested. "But see? Look at the ones who have tried."

Rosalita looked where the badger pointed and did a double take. No less than ten of her guards lay strewn about the floor, all quite unconscious. "But how?"

"It was them," her captain answered. "They may not like each other, but they like anyone interfering in their business even less. Anytime someone even tries to, they gang up on him until he's out of the way, and then go back to fighting each other!"

"No lo creo si no lo veo," Rosalita murmured, her delicate eyebrows drawing together just slightly. With a heavy sigh, her captain ordered two of his men to attack. They did so reluctantly and carefully, but it mattered not. As soon as they were close enough to strike, they were instead struck repeatedly by both intruders' canes, knocking them out without any trouble. "Lo creo," Rosalita said with a sigh, sitting down as both Sly and the Vixen returned to their own fight as fluidly as they had broken from it. "So what do we do? Just sit here until they're done?"

The captain shrugged and nodded, turning his attention back to the fight. "It does seem wise, does it not? After all, whichever one wins we can then swarm and overpower. And besides, it is quite the entertainment, no? We even have a betting pool going on who will be the one to win."

Rosalita rolled her eyes in exasperation. But he was right; watching them fight certainly was quite the show. "Put me down for fifty on la zorra," she said, crossing her legs at the knee and settling herself back in her chair.

If Sly and the Vixen were aware they had gained an audience, they didn't show it in the least. They were way too busy trying to score a hit on each other while avoiding being hit. So far, Sly had landed a total of three blows and the Vixen had landed five. But Sly's blows had landed more flushly so they were in pretty much equal condition.

The house, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. Many pieces of furniture had been destroyed and a number of items shattered by the numerous blows that had missed their intended target. Even the walls were being scarred by the errant blows. But neither of them cared, all their attention focused solely on the fight.

It was only a matter of time before Rosalita became aware of the devastation however. "My house!" she screeched, exploding out of the chair and to her feet. "They have gone too far! Get out of my way," she ordered her guards, walking over to a safe that had been uncovered when a painting of her father had been destroyed.

"Señorita, no!" her captain cried, realizing just what was in that safe. "¡Vámanos!" he yelled to his guards, motioning for them to follow him as he ran outside, muttering a quick prayer that they could get clear in time.

It took Rosalita an extra moment or two to open the safe because of the chaos that surrounded her. But once she did, a triumphant smirk showed itself on her lips. She reached inside and pulled out a small object wrapped in the finest black silk. Carefully, she unwrapped the item to reveal what appeared to be an ordinary handgun. But Rosalita knew better, she knew the months that had been spent crafting this weapon, time that would be put to good use right now.

Sly's senses went off like police sirens the moment Rosalita's hand touched the gun. He locked canes with the Vixen and tossed a quick glance to his left. When he saw Rosalita aiming the gun between their heads, he thought nothing of it. But his instincts were still screaming at him so he let himself fall back, pulling the Vixen up and over him and out of harm's way.

And from the hole that appeared in the wall and the five walls past it, including the bank vault itself, Sly realized he made a very good decision. "That was too close," he said, kipping up to his feet.

The Vixen mirrored his move and then turned to face Rosalita. "I had no idea a gun like that existed," she said, dropping into a low stance, her cane held at the ready.

"We'll finish our fight later," Sly said, sprinting around to Rosalita's left.

"Oh no you don't," Rosalita said calmly, aiming and firing her gun at Sly. But Sly was too fast and he managed to avoid the blast. "Stand still!" she yelled, taking her time to aim at him again.

Sly ran around the rubble in the hallway as best he could, but a loose floorboard tripped him up. He went sprawling face first across the floor, small pieces of debris scraping and cutting at his face. But even worse, he was a sitting duck for Rosalita, and he knew there was no getting out of this one. But just before Rosalita fired again, the Vixen hit her in the wrist with her cane, knocking her aim off just enough. Before Rosalita could recover, she dashed over, scooped Sly up under her arm, and ran into one of the side rooms.

"Thanks for saving my tail," Sly said reluctantly.

"I much prefer your tail where it is than splattered over the walls," the Vixen returned.

Sly couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Is there ever a time when you're not thinking about flirting?" he asked, feeling a strange sense of deja vu.

"Only when I'm figuring out an opponent's weakness," the Vixen answered matter-of-factly. "And I think I just figured out hers."

"Really now? Why don't you let me in on this startling revelation."

"As you wish monsieur," the Vixen said, leaning her ear against the door as she listened for their pursuer. It bothered Sly a little how she had switched back to her French accent so easily, but he was only able to file it away for later. "Did you notice that she took quite a long time to fire her weapon again after each shot? There were times she could have had us both dead, but she didn't take the shot."

"Wait a minute. Are you telling me that this supergun of hers can't be fired in quick succession?"

"It's either that or she has a limited amount of firepower for it," the Vixen admitted. "Either way, if we can get her to take a wild shot, we may be able to take her down before she can get another one off."

"Sounds simple enough, but that means it really isn't."

A throaty chuckle left the Vixen's lips. "How unfortunately true. This was supposed to be a simple game I was playing with you, but then you had to go and complicate things."

Sly was about to tell her what he thought of her game, but then she dove on him, knocking him to the ground just before the door was shattered by a massive blast. Rosalita ran into the room, gun at the ready and immediately trained it on the pair of thieves. The Vixen rolled one way and Sly rolled the other, a full two or three seconds before Rosalita shot again, smashing a crater into the concrete floor.

"Follow my lead!" the Vixen yelled, making Rosalita look her way. But before the dangerous skunk could get the Vixen in her sights, the Vixen began a series of intricate jumps and dodges, never staying in one spot for more than a second.

"I may not like you right now," Sly said, "but I love the way you think." He ran past Rosalita, swatting her playfully on her firm behind before going into his own acrobatic routine. And while he also didn't land in one place for long, he also made sure he stayed on the opposite side of the room from the Vixen so as not to give Rosalita a shot at them both.

Rosalita was getting frustrated. The gun in her hands was becoming very hot; she had used it far more often than it was intended to be used. But she had to destroy these two before they wrecked everything she had worked for. All she needed was one clear shot and they would be done for. Just one clear shot! But no matter where she moved or aimed, she could not draw a bead on them.

She heard one of them land softly behind her, and she whirled around with the gun outstretched. Before she could bring it into position, the other one landed on the opposite side of her. By instinct she whirled back the opposite way, realizing her mistake only when it was too late to do anything about it. "¡Carajo!" she whispered, closing her eyes so that she didn't have to see the blows that she knew were coming.

As she expected, the hooks of both Sly's and the Vixen's canes slammed into the sides of her head, rendering her unconscious before she even began to slump to the ground. "And that takes care of her," the Vixen pronounced. "And she deserves at least that much for believing her business with you is more important than mine."

Sly just shook his head in disbelief. "Whatever you say," he said as he walked away. "I don't care what you do with her, I just want to get out of here and go home. I've had a really rough day."

"And what makes you think I'm done with you?" she asked, following him back into the bathroom and into the secret passage. "I'm still upset with you for trying to change the rules of my game!"

"Whoever said you got to make the rules?" Sly inquired. "You never asked me what I wanted, you just showed up and started interfering. I was perfectly happy before you and your game entered my life."

They continued to bicker all the way up the spiral staircase, but there really wasn't any heat behind their words. Whether it was because they had tired themselves out or because they really weren't angry anymore, neither one knew. But then, neither one cared at the moment.

They emerged into the cool night air still arguing, but they stopped once they reached the roof's edge. "So, this is where we part ways, again," Sly said, leaning casually on his cane. "And please don't take this the wrong way, but I do hope we don't meet up again."

The Vixen snorted, scratching the back of her head with the hook of her cane. "You do realize by now I'm not the type of woman to take no for an answer, right?"

"Well I hadn't really thought about it, but I'm not surprised. Still, there's no way for you to know where I'll be going next. I guarantee I'll be in and out of there before you even know where I am."

"A challenge, huh?" the Vixen asked, purposely mimicking Sly's words from the encounter at the museum. "Well, let it never be said that the Vixen backs down from a challenge, especially from a dashing gentleman like you."

"Do you enjoy doing that?" Sly asked, his tail twitching about randomly in his agitation.

"More than you could possibly know," the Vixen answered, leaning toward Sly and angling her head just slightly. But before she could deliver on the promise of a kiss, something that Sly didn't seem all that averse to, a shockbolt flew through the air over their heads, making them both jump apart. "Talk about a mood killer," she said under her breath, her hands tightening on her cane. "And I can think of someone else I'd like to kill."

Sly's demeanor went from surprised to angry in less than a heartbeat. "Leave her out of this," he said firmly. "This is between you and me."

The Vixen smirked at Sly, but unlike every other time he saw that look on her masked face, this time it chilled him to his core. "There is always room in my game for more players," she said calmly. "Or in this case, more pieces."

Sly took a step toward her, but he got no closer as the hook of her cane was buried into his stomach. The impact was light and didn't hurt at all, but the electric jolt that followed more than made up for it. Sly collapsed onto the roof, most of his body paralyzed from the shock. "Please don't," he whispered, struggling to turn his head to look at the Vixen.

But the Vixen had already leapt from the roof, gliding to the ground by way of a white paraglider in the shape of a white fox's head. Carmelita fired shockbolt after shockbolt at her, but the Vixen always managed to twist her body to avoid them. When she was directly above Carmelita, she released the paraglider and dropped down, swinging her cane with all the force and momentum she could. Carmelita tried to block the blow, but it was too much and the impact to her skull knocked her out cold.

Sly had forced his body to crawl to the roof's edge and he'd seen the whole thing. He stared with disbelief as the Vixen hoisted Carmelita up onto her shoulders and turned to look his way. "You want her back Cooper?" she yelled up to him. "It's time to play a new game. This one's called 'Follow the clues.' And your first one is right here." The Vixen pulled a rolled up piece of paper from her boot and dropped it on the ground.

Sly watched helplessly as the Vixen carried Carmelita off into the Madrid night. "Carmelita!" he yelled frantically, his anguish carrying through the cool air. Once he had regained enough mobility in his body, he pushed himself off the roof and used his own paraglider to get to the ground. His landing was far rougher than the Vixen's and he ended up skidding across the sidewalk on his face a few feet.

Ignoring the pain from the landing, Sly scampered over to where the rolled paper lay. It took a couple tries to open the paper up because he was still a little weak. But as soon as he did, all pain and weakness left his body in the face of an anger so powerful it literally made him see red.

The paper he held, now crumpled into a very small ball in his hand, was a perfect copy of one of the pages of his very own Thievius Raccoonus.

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Return to the Past

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Chapter 6: Return to the Past

Bentley sat in his wheelchair outside the Cooper Gang headquarters, looking sadly at the dark and winding road that led off into the city of Paris proper some miles away. It had been a week since the job in Spain and there was still no sign of Sly. Bentley was getting very worried, even starting to lose a little hope that his friend was all right.

Sly did not arrive at the rendezvous point as planned after the job went bad. Both Bentley and Murray had scoured the countryside for two days with absolutely no luck. They hadn't wanted to return to their hideout in Paris, but they couldn't figure out anything else to do. Besides, they knew that if Sly was able, that would be the first place he'd get to.

Once they'd arrived home, Bentley had spent every day scouring Thiefnet for any sign of Sly's whereabouts. There were a few unconfirmed reports of a raccoon hitching a ride on various vehicles and making general progress toward Paris, just enough to keep hope alive and well.

Since they'd been back, however, Murray refused to talk to Bentley. It was as if he blamed the turtle for all this mess. Bentley never put up an arguement or tried to defend himself; the truth was that he blamed himself as well. If only he'd kept on top of the situation better, if only he'd insisted they keep with the plan, if only...

Bentley's thoughts were disturbed by the front door opening. He wheeled around to roll himself inside, not even looking at Murray standing next to the door. Bentley knew that Murray would only come and get him when a meal was ready, as he had for the past four or five days. As they both approached the table where a very small and simple meal sat, Bentley offered up a small prayer to any deity that was listening that Sly would make it home safe, sound, and soon.

Before Bentley could even eat his first forkful of spaghetti, the front door slammed open. His fork clattered to his plate as he beheld the blue sweater and peasant cap clad raccoon crouched in the doorway. "Sly?" he whispered, almost unable to believe that the ragged and unkempt figure in front of his eyes was the same Sly he'd known for so many years.

"Sly!" Murray roared happily, jumping up from the table and running toward Sly to give him a bone-crushing hug. But before he could, he had to jump back in surprise and fear as Sly took a swipe at him with his cane, nearly drawing blood from the hippo's stomach. "Sly?" he whispered in disbelief.

Sly upper lip twitched as he fought to control his feelings of contempt. "How could you?" he demanded in a low voice, a voice he'd only ever used when talking about the ones who killed his father. "How could you!"

"What are you talking about Sly?" Bentley asked, trying to keep his voice calm as he slowly approached the raccoon. "How could we...what?"

Sly let out a low laugh, one that made the skin on Bentley's neck crawl. "As if you don't know," he said, fixing Bentley with a cold stare. "But if you insist on playing, then this is what I'm talking about!" He pulled a crumpled piece of paper and threw it at Bentley, catching him right in the center of his chest with it. "The Vixen left that for me as a parting shot or a clue of some kind."

Bentley slowly uncrumpled the paper with shaking hands as he felt more than saw Murray moving to stand behind him. His heart dropped to somewhere around his feet when he saw what it was. "Surely you don't think--" he began.

"Don't lie to me!" Sly thundered. "There is no way the Vixen could've gotten a copy of that page unless one of you, or both of you, gave it to her."

"How could you accuse us of that after all we've been through?" Bentley demanded. "Besides, there's no way we could have given this to her. And I can prove it."

"Oh really?" Sly asked, leaning against the doorway casually though Bentley could see that his entire body was still tensed to spring. "OK, I'll give you one chance to explain yourself, but it had better be good."

Bentley sighed and cleared his throat. "Sly, I know you're upset, and I don't blame you for that. But in your anger, you've overlooked one key fact that completely exonerates both Murray and myself."

"Is that so? Please then, enlighten me on the error of my ways."

Bentley adjusted the glasses on his nose before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I'm not even going to try to deny that this is a page from the Thievius Raccoonus; there's no way around that. But there is absolutely no chance that it came from your Thievius Raccoonus."

"What do you mean 'my Thievius Raccoonus?' Bentley, there is only one copy of that book in existence! You know that as well as I do."

"Quite right," Bentley agreed with a nod. "However, there is one thing that you're forgetting. Each time you reclaimed a piece of the Thievius Raccoonus from the Fiendish Five, you took the time to make notes on the page, just like all your ancestors have done, to make the technique work better for you."

"And your point is...?"

"My point is that nowhere on this page do I see your handwriting."

Sly stalked over and snatched the paper from Bentley's hand. When he saw that Bentley was right, confusion hit him with a force akin to a Mack truck going at sixty miles per hour. "B-but how...?" he whispered, falling back hard on his tail.

Bentley sighed and wheeled himself over to his friend's side. "As near as I can tell, this looks exactly as it did when you first recovered it. That leads me to believe that the Fiendish Five must have made copies of each page. That way, even if the originals were taken, or they themselves were carted off to jail, there would be a backup so that they could eventually rebuild their empires. And with the Vixen as obsessed with you as she is, she could've easily found one stash of copies and gone on to locate the others."

Sly felt like the world had been pulled out from under him. He'd spent the last week so enraged that he couldn't think or see straight. All he wanted to do was make his way home and confront his teammates about their evident betrayal. Only now, he was the one confronted with the truth he had been unable to recognize. And as the last vestiges of his anger drained away, the aching void it left behind wrung from his eyes the first tears he had cried since the death of his parents.

Any resentment that Bentley and Murray had been harboring because of Sly's actions dissipated in the face of those tears. Murray ran over and scooped Sly up into a warm hug, trying to soothe his tears. Bentley rolled over and joined in, trying to comfort his friend, albeit more than a little awkwardly. "Sly," he said firmly, "I don't blame you for thinking what you did. That book is one of only two things you have left of your family. But I swear to you that Murray and I would never betray any of your secrets to an enemy." Once Sly nodded to show he understood, Bentley clapped him on the back, hurting his hand in the process. "Now that that's settled, I need to find a way to get us to Haiti."

Sly, who had been in the process of getting back to his feet, nearly fell back down when he heard that. "Haiti?" he asked. "Why are we going there?"

Bentley used one of his wheelchair's attachments to scoop up the almost forgotten piece of paper. "This page talks about your ancestor Slytunkhamen and his Invisibility technique. If my memory serves me correctly, and it always does, you got this page when you defeated Mz. Ruby deep in the jungles of Haiti. Now while I swore I would never go back to that bacteria and mold filled swamp, it appears that's where the Vixen is holed up. If you want Carmelita back, that's where we'll have to go."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Sly asked, turning toward the door, ready to sprint out of it.

"Hold on Sly," Murray said, grabbing him by the back of his sweater and lifting him off the ground easily. "First you're gonna eat and then you're gonna sleep. And I won't take no for an answer," he added when Sly got ready to argue. "There's no way I should be able to touch you if you're at your best. And right now, you're so far from it you won't be any help to Carmelita when we do get there."

Sly grumbled something under his breath, but he knew that Murray was right. With as much grace as he could muster, he slipped out of Murray's grip and stalked toward his bedroom. "Anything else?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Yeah!" Bentley called and Sly was mentally kicking himself for even asking. "Take a shower first. You stink!" Sly did everything he was ordered to by his friends, especially the sleep. He was a little afraid to go to sleep, worried that he'd have nightmares about Carmelita's abduction. But he was way too exhausted to have any dreams and his sleep was undisturbed.

The next morning, Sly was up and ready to go before the others. He briefly debated waking them up, but his actions the night before prevented him. Instead, he decided to attempt to cook breakfast. Unfortunately, attempted was the key word as he completely ruined the food he was cooking, not to mention the pan, stove, and the sink. The smoke coming from his charcoaled pancakes and dessicated eggs filled the lower floor of the hideout and forced Sly to open up the window to air it out.

"What's going on down there?" Murray roared. He came bounding down the stairs only to come face-to-face with a very sheepish Sly fanning the smoke out the window. "I don't even want to know," Murray said when Sly opened his mouth to explain. "I cook, you steal. You should know that by now." He sighed as he surveyed the damage, rolling up the sleeves on his nightshirt. "Go sit over there; I'll see what I can salvage."

It wasn't until almost noon that they were on their way to Haiti. Amazingly, Bentley had managed to book them the exact same route that they had taken when they had hunted down Mz. Ruby. It was a simple drive to get from the secret airport where they'd landed to the point where Sly had first penetrated the jungle. "OK, I'm off," Sly said, taking up his cane as Murray backed the van up.

"What do you mean you're off?" Bentley inquired. "I thought we were going into this as a team."

"While I'd love for that to happen," Sly said, "I don't think there's an easy way for you to get where we have to go in your wheelchair. Even then, I'm the only one who can navigate the branches and vines with the Raccoon Rail Walk and Rail Slide."

Bentley sighed but acknowledged the truth of Sly's words. "All right, we'll do this old school then. I'll keep tabs on you from here and try to warn you of any problems."

"This shouldn't even take that long," Sly said with a confident smirk. "I'll be to the main hub in a minute and a half flat."

"I believe you could have if this were two years ago. But it has been a while since we've been here, and who knows what changes the Vixen has made to the path. Just keep an eye out and don't get too cocky. That's probably what the Vixen is expecting of you."

Sly kicked open the van's doors and looked out at the swamp for a long moment. "I'll try," was all he said before jumping out and landing on the mossy ground. He ran forward and jumped across two rocks but had to backpedal when a large mosquito dropped out of the sky. One swipe of his cane took care of it, but he was still a little shaken up. "Hey what gives," he said, bringing up Bentley on the binoc-u-com. "I thought for sure the swamp would be deserted after we defeated Mz. Ruby."

"And it is, in a sense," Bentley replied. "The giant mosquitos called this swamp home long before Mz. Ruby ever set foot inside it. So expect to run into at least a few of them, and a few giant spiders."

Sly rolled his eyes but put the binoc-u-com away. He jumped to a worn away branch that he rail walked across and then to another jutting rock with a stone idol on it. The first time he'd been here, the idol had glowed with an unholy light. But the idol was dark now, the magic that was in it gone. He looked at it for a second or two before shrugging and using the drum in front of it to trampoline up to the vine above.

Halfway into the rail slide he executed to reach the next ledge, he nearly lost his footing on a piece of slippery moss. He needed to use his cane to keep from falling into the murky water, but he managed to arrive at the large leaf safely. "I don't remember that being there," he muttered, taking out his binoc-u-com and using it to zoom in on the offending piece of plant life.

"Like I said Sly," Bentley said, thinking that Sly had been talking to him, "who knows what changes the Vixen has made."

Sly didn't even bother to respond as he put the binoc-u-com away. He jumped to the next leaf and then spun into another rail slide. This one turned out to be a triple rail slide as he had to grind on three vines in quick succession. There were a couple patches of strategically placed moss on the vines, but now that he was aware of their presence he was able to avoid them without any problem.

He jumped from the end of the final vine to another large leaf and then to a more stable patch of ground. He took care of a group of three mosquitos without any problems before noticing that his binoc-u-com was buzzing. "What's up Bentley?" he asked, turning it on so that he could speak to his friend.

"Something's wrong Sly," Bentley said, his face looking worried. "I should've been getting a feed from the signal repeater I stashed in your area the first time we came through, but I'm not getting anything."

Sly scanned around until he saw the signal repeater, or at least what was left of it. "Hmm, that might explain it," he said, making sure Bentley could see the debris.

"How could she?" Bentley yelled, slamming his fist on the console in front of him. "The signal repeater was one of my finest technological advancements. How could she just destroy it like an old television?"

"If it was so advanced, why did we stop using it?" Sly asked, trying to stop Bentley's rant before it even got started. Bentley's lack of response, and slack-jawed face, was all that Sly needed to see. Chuckling to himself, he put the binoc-u-com away and continued on his way.

As he walked to the next drum to be used as a trampoline, he noticed that the torches flanking it were freshly lit. "Looks like I'm expected," he thought, shrugging as he vaulted off the drum to the waiting vine. He slid down it easily, transferring to the next vine flawlessly. Another drum waited for him when he reached the end of that one, leading up to another vine that led to yet another drum and yet another vine.

That vine allowed him to slide through two cliffsides to reach a branch that he could rail walk on, but he noticed too late that the only place he could land was covered in moss. He tried everything he could to stick the landing, but his feet flew out from underneath him as soon as they touched the slippery moss. Even worse as far as Sly was concerned, his feet went in opposite directions and he ended up straddling the branch hard.

Pain of the specific type that only men could experience shot through Sly's body. Gritting his teeth against the whimper that wanted to escape his throat, he slowly drew himself up to his feet. "I'd like to take a moment of silence to mourn the loss of my future children," he hissed in a tight voice, shifting rapidly from one foot to the other to try and relieve some of the pain.

A loud chittering sound caught his attention. One of the large spiders that called this swamp home was hanging from a silken thread looking at him and laughing. At least that's what Sly interpreted the chittering sound as, and it was making him mad. "Think that's funny?" he yelled, his voice an octave or so higher because of his pain. The sound of Sly's voice only made the spider laugh harder, swaying on its silk. Sly ran over and swung his cane like a bat, launching the spider deep into the jungle where it disappeared into the darkness still laughing.

"I'm glad someone finds humor in my misery," Sly muttered, finishing his rail walk and jumping across to the solid ground. He clearly remembered this part; the path led him into a tunnel through a massive tree stump and out the other side. But inside the tunnel was one of the strangest creatures he'd ever seen. Some kind of conglomeration of wood, vines, and moss that was easily decapitated by one swing of his cane. The problem was, of course, that the head and the body could act independently of each other and still attack. He really hoped that this was not one of the swamp's natural denizens.

For the first time that day, something actually went right for him and he passed through the tunnel unmolested. After making a double rail walk to the top of the stump, he was pleased to find it empty as well. "Looks like a few things are finally going my way," he thought, running across the stump and leaping off the edge. His instinct was to pull out his parasail, but he wasn't sure how the dampness of the swamp would affect its effectiveness. Besides, he'd made the jump before without the parasail, and this time would be no different.

He landed in front of a wooden fence with very sharp pointed tops. The last time he was here, the fence was guarded by some kind of mystic weasel. Now however, it was completely unguarded. He jumped straight up and over the lookout section and ran down the ramp behind it. Halfway down, he had to stop and run right back to the top.

On the ground below were ten tentlike structures, just as he remembered there being. There had been about six weasel guards as well, guarding five of Mz. Ruby's purple force field candles. Now there were seven canine guards, and there were again five purple candles. But where before the force field created by the candles had been used to protect the first of Mz. Ruby's treasure keys, this time the force field blocked the only path into the main hub of the swamp.

"She is good, I'll give her that," Sly thought, surveying the area carefully. "Not having any other guards in place made me think she wouldn't have any here. And I almost ran right into trouble." He watched the guards as they patrolled the grounds, memorizing the routes they walked.

It was a pretty basic patrol sequence, mostly circular around one tent or a figure-eight around two. But he couldn't really take out any guards with his cane without alerting the other guards of his presence. Still, there was a way to pull it off, and it shouldn't be too much trouble for him.

Sly crept down the ramp as the nearest patroldog passed, taking his cap from his head. He tossed his cap down right in the path of one of the dogs, activating the mine hidden inside when the dog was close enough. Just like he'd planned, the concussive blast knocked the dog out without making too much noise. Sly grabbed the dog by his shoulders and dragged him out of sight, making sure the blast hadn't hurt him too much.

And so it went with the next five guards, Sly easily knocking them out before they even knew what hit them. But the final guard was smarter than Sly had counted on. The pooch had noticed that he no longer saw any of his compatriots, so had become a lot more wary. It was no more than a rustle of grass in the still air that made him whirl around, but it was enough to catch Sly in the act of laying his final cap.

Sly looked up as the dog cocked his gun and levelled it at his head, only now noticing that the guard had found him out. He started to raise his hands in surrender, but instead turned and dove behind the nearest tent. The guard gave chase, but made the mistake of walking over Sly's cap; a mistake he found out about when Sly made it explode.

"That was almost careless of me," Sly thought, not even bothering to hide that guard as he was the last. He ran through the area, snuffing the purple candles out with his cane. As soon as the last one no longer burned, the force field that blocked the exit vanished. "That was the easy part," Sly realized as he ran up the ramp and under the giant bat skeleton. "The hard part will be figuring out just where the Vixen is holed up.

"If I were her," Sly continued silently as he performed a rail slide down a long vine to get to the center of what was once Mz. Ruby's lair, "I would go the one place that's the hardest to get to and the hardest to get through: Skull Temple." He sprinted forward as he landed on the mossy ground to where a bone altar still stood. Even though the candles were dark, Sly could still feel a lingering evil in the ground that it stood on, a testament to Mz. Ruby's power.

Most of the area was dark, lit only when strays bolts of lightning streaked across the sky. But a couple of candles were lit to his left, framing the shortcut to where the cauldron probably still lay. "As I thought," he said with a smirk, slinking toward the candles and then jumping on the drum that lay between them.

He made a perfect landing on the upper walkway and ran along it to where, as Bentley put it, the "voodoo egg beater" waited. But when it came into view, Sly got a surprise. Though the masks were still motionless from when he brought the lid down to ride it up to the Temple, the torches were unlit and the cauldron lid was missing. It looked like no one had even been near it in years.

Sly swore softly under his breath. "I could've sworn that she would've been there," he said with an angry sigh. But now that he got a good view of the temple itself, he could see that it too was dark and even crumbling a bit. "Probably less safe up there than I remember it being."

He sighed again and looked around. "Where could she be? She wouldn't have led me here if she didn't want me to find her. That's what her whole game is about." But there was nothing else; everything was as dark and lifeless as the green goo that spouted from a nearby stone structure.

"Wait a minute," Sly told himself, staring at the pea-colored liquid. "Didn't Bentley make sure we stopped the flow of that? Hey Bentley," he said aloud, turning on his binoc-u-com and dialing the speaker volume up to the maximum so that he didn't have to bring it up to his eyes, "didn't we dry up the green goo?"

"What are you talking about?" Bentley asked, his nasal voice about an octave higher than normal. "Of course we did. There's no way I could've allowed such a crime against nature to continue to exist. It goes against everything I believe in!"

"That's what I thought," Sly said, using the hook of his cane as a back scratcher to reach that one place nothing else could. "So what would you make of the fact that the goop is flowing again?"

"I'd say that another call to the Health Department is in order," Bentley said matter-of-factly. "But I think that's not the answer you're looking for. So yes Sly, I'm pretty sure that the Vixen has made that underground cavern her base. And when I get my hands on her..."

Sly raised an eyebrow at the tone of Bentley's voice. "I promise I'll save you a piece after I get done with her," Sly said with a chuckle, shutting off the binoc-u-com as Bentley continued to rant and rave. He jumped off the walkway and rail walked around the branches surrounding the "egg beater" to reach the area that still often haunted Bentley's nightmares. Sure enough, a calling card in the shape of a white fox's head awaited him.

"Honey, I'm home," he muttered, walking down the tunnel carefully, keeping his eyes open for any danger. The first thing he noticed was that the branches that had covered the path when he'd first been this way had been freshly cut, erasing any doubt he had over the Vixen's presence.

As he emerged into the cavern proper, he rail walked to the first floating platform before a voice stopped him from going any further. "Glad to see you finally made it Cooper," the Vixen's voice taunted him. "Carmelita's getting really lonely you know with just me and the goo for company. Did you know she's started talking to the goo? I always knew she wasn't quite sane."

Sly whirled around, his cane held ready until he saw where the Vixen was. She was crouched on top of one of the massive cobra head stone statues, drumming her fingers casually against the shaft of her cane. "Where is she?" Sly asked, slashing the air in front of him with his cane. "Let her go!"

"Now now Cooper," the Vixen said, wagging her finger at him, "you know I don't respond well to being talked to like that. I had considered making this a little easy on you, but since you see fit to order me around, I'm going to make you do this the hard way."

"Hard way, easy way, it doesn't matter. Every way that this goes ends up the same way: you in jail and Carmelita in my arms."

"Big words Ringtail, but let's see if you can back it up. I'll be waiting for you at the end of the Magic Slide. If you think you got what it takes, just bring it. And try not to keep me waiting too long; a lady never likes to wait and I've already waited far too long for you."

"The only lady who's waiting on me is Carmelita!" Sly yelled as the Vixen pulled a disappearing trick. "And what did she mean by 'Magic Slide?'" He thought as he turned around and dashed forward. He jumped off the platform and, using his cane, crawled along a line of connected bones that led underneath a platform ringed with spiked logs. Sly thanked his luck that no guard patrolled this platform or the one next to it, but then cursed it in the same breath as one of the bones he crawled across broke away just as he put his weight on it.

Fortunately, his reflexes were quick enough to avoid getting dumped in the slime. "That female is really trying my patience," he growled, jumping carefully to the next line of bones and testing each one before he put his weight on it. Two more bones did break away, but Sly had no trouble avoiding them this time.

He jumped off the end of the second line and landed quietly on a large rock. Ahead of him were five floating platforms that gently rocked from side to side atop the river. Sly winced as he remembered the guardian of those platforms, a weird bird or turtle like creature that would throw its own flaming skull at him like a bomb. More than once Sly had nearly been burned to a crisp by those things, so he was very grateful that the platforms were unguarded.

He leapt easily from platform to platform until he reached the log bridge that ran toward a large stone idol of a crocodile or something like it. Acting on instinct and memory, he ran across the bridge to the base of the idol and hooked his cane onto a line of bones that snaked up around the idol in a spiral. This line of bones ended well before the top, but another one started a couple of yards beneath him.

Sly closed his eyes as he climbed to the final bone of the line he was on. He really hated this part; leaping out into mid-air and hoping he could catch his hook on the bones below. Normally he wouldn't even question his abilities but with the Vixen's penchant for leaving surprises for him on what seemed to be secure places, he couldn't be sure that he wouldn't fall down to the ooze because the bone he chose to grab broke away.

He studied the second line of bones, trying to pick out one that looked either more or less secure than the others. He leaned down to peer at the lower bones, all of which looked a little off, when the one he was holding onto gave way. "Whoa!" he yelped as he fell, reaching out with his cane blindly to stop his descent.

His cane hooked onto the third bone from the bottom and he was able to bring himself safely to a stop. "That was too close," he said, grabbing hold of the bone and wrapping his body around it. It was then that he noticed that the bones had been colored differently from the others to make it seem like something was wrong with them when in fact they were perfectly safe. "I should've known," he grumbled, pulling himself up the bones with more force than was necessary.

When he reached the top of that line, he jumped forward, landing on the idol's outstretched arm. He sprinted forward to where the clawed hand was and jumped over the claws, snagging his cane on a hook dangling from the ceiling. He used his momentum from the first leap to launch himself at the second hook and then to the support beams below.

The last time he had been here, rickety wooden planks had linked the stone beams and security lights had swept across them at specific intervals. Now the lights were dark, the wood broken and gone. It would be tricky, especially since the beams still bore spiked logs on parts of them, but nothing that he couldn't handle.

He prepared himself to make the first jump, but he saw something coming at him out of the corner of his eye. Whatever it was, it was on fire and moving too fast to intercept so Sly had to jump before he was ready. He threw himself across the gap, landing stomach first on the next beam over. The object landed right where he had been, shattering on the stone and bursting into flames.

Sly looked at the fire in disbelief as it burned itself out. "Oh come on now!" a gruff voice yelled from near the end of the beams. Sly kipped up to his feet and looked to where the voice came from. A grey wolf with overly shaggy fur stared back, a cruel smile on his lips. He was wearing a black cap with orange stripes and an orange jumpsuit with black stripes. He stood out so much against the murky background of the cave that Sly had no idea how he missed him. "You didn't think you were just going to stroll through this, did you?" the wolf asked, tossing a clear ball filled with a translucent fluid up and down.

Sly didn't bother answering him; he was way too pissed off right now to talk. He ran along the beam he'd landed on, jumping to another beam only when he had to avoid either a spiked log or a thrown firebomb. Sly smirked when he noticed that it took a second or two for the wolf to launch another firebomb; he had to lit a fuse before he threw it or it was useless. Sly timed his jumps so that the last one brought him in front of the wolf just as he'd lit the latest fuse.

"What the--!" the wolf exclaimed, taken aback by how quickly Sly had gotten so close. Then he realized the bomb he was holding was lit and threw it into the river below just before it exploded in his hands. He was about to give himself a pat on the back for his quick thinking when Sly did it for him...with his cane.

Sly touched two of his fingers to his temple in a mock salute as he watched the wolf fall to one of the platforms below. Without waiting to see if the wolf would get up, Sly jumped out and grabbed onto a hanging rope, pulling himself up it hand over hand. Once he was high enough, he jumped to a wooden chandelier, rail walking along the outer edge of it.

He had to navigate another rope, another chandelier, and yet another rope before he made it to the top of the green waterfall. As he found on the support beams, the alarm system he'd encountered when he was here after one of Mz. Ruby's treasure keys was deactivated. But also like the support beams, this area was protected by a pyromaniac wolf. "Got by my brother?" the wolf called tossing a couple bombs that landed well short of Sly. "Let's see how you do against me."

Sly immediately knew that this would be a bigger problem than the first one. For one thing, the river platforms here were a lot tougher to keep his balance on. For another, this wolf had a candle in front of him that he was using to light the bombs one after the other. That meant he could throw his firebombs almost non-stop. Fortunately the wolf wasn't a strong thrower so the bombs couldn't reach him yet, but that was going to change the moment he stepped foot on a platform.

Sly feinted toward the left platform to draw the wolf's fire that way, but jumped to the right instead. Then he jumped to the right again, dodging the firebomb the wolf sent at the other platfrom as if he'd expected another feint. But Sly could get no closer as the wolf laid down a barrage of firebombs that kept the nearest platforms alight with fire.

Sly tried to find a way through the fire, but the heat was almost unbearable and he was still a platform away. But soon enough the way found him as the fires died out with no firebombs coming to replenish it. Sly looked at the wolf in surprise to see him digging through a burlap sack, probably looking for more firebombs.

"Uh oh," the wolf muttered when he found the sack was empty. He swallowed nervously and looked up at Sly. The raccoon was methodically making his way toward him, spinning the cane around in his hand with an obvious evil intent. The wolf sighed, tossed the sack aside, pinched his nose shut, and cannonballed into the viscous liquid.

Sly ran over to where the wolf had jumped in, watching him as he went feetfirst over the waterfall and disappeared. "That was...weird," he said after a moment. Shaking his head, he walked down the platform to where he could hear the goo rushing from.

Two dead torches stood out in the river, allowing him to spire jump up to a bone platform. Two more torches led him up to a bigger platform that overlooked the whole cavern. A single purple candle sat in the middle of the platform, glowing with an ominous light. Nothing else could be seen from his vantage point so Sly slammed his cane down on the candle. He didn't expect it to do much, but it did let him vent a little of his anger.

As soon as the candle was extinguished, a long and winding branch appeared out of thin air, perfect to rail slide on. Sly stared at it a moment before chuckling to himself. "I guess that's what she meant by 'the Magic Slide,'" he realized. Mentally smacking himself for forgetting such an important part of this area, he jumped up and landed on the branch, using it to rail slide to where the Vixen was waiting.

As he slid along the branch, he kept his eyes peeled for the Vixen. But even as he neared the end, she was nowhere to be seen. "That lying, conniving little--"

"Surprise!" the Vixen yelled, cutting him off as she dropped in on Sly from above, her cane swinging for his head.

Sly barely got up his arm to block the blow. But though he protected his head, the force of the strike numbed his arm and made him stagger into the wall. "Where is Carmelita?" he demanded, trying to rub feeling back into his arm.

"Don't worry about her," the Vixen purred, taking another swing at him. "Worry about me."

Sly clenched his teeth in anger and went on the offensive, swinging and slashing his cane every which way. With a surprising amount of ease, he was able to disarm the Vixen and knock her down in only a couple blows. "That was too easy," Sly growled, keeping his cane trained on her. "What's your game now Vixen?"

The Vixen stared him down for a second before laughing. "How easy you are to fool Cooper," she said, reaching up for the top of her mask. She pulled it off...and half her face too! But no, it wasn't her face she pulled off, the entire thing was a mask! The face behind the mask was no vixen either, it was a white feline with patches of brown and grey on her face.

"You're the Vixen?" Sly asked, his mouth dropping open in shock.

"Hardly," the cat purred in a much deeper voice than he had heard before, chuckling deep in her throat. "But if you really thought she was going to face you like this, you are sadly mistaken. This was only a test to see if you really would come here."

"Where is she?" Sly demanded, resting the tip of his cane against her throat even though he had to force himself to do so without shaking.

"Who?" the feline asked, blinking her blue eyes innocently at him. "Do you want Carmelita or the Vixen? It doesn't matter, they're both in the same place. Since you beat me, I guess I can tell you where that is. Or rather, show you." She reached into her boot and threw something in Sly's face.

Sly caught the item on instinct, allowing the feline to scramble away from him and escape, leaving nothing behind but her mocking laughter. Sly started to give chase until he noticed the item he held in his hand. With a rueful grin, he turned on his binoc-u-com and held it up to his face. "Do you read me Bentley?" he asked, taking a few breaths to force himself to stay calm.

"I read you Sly," Bentley said, his face appearing on the corner screen. "Is everything OK? Did you beat the Vixen? Did you save Carmelita?"

"The Vixen wasn't even here," Sly said in distaste. "It was just one of her flunkies made up to look like her. But she did give me a clue to where the Vixen really is. I'm going to need to be picked up and then you need to make arrangements for us to travel to India."

"India?" Bentley asked, adjusting the glasses on his face. "Why do you think she's in India?"

"Oh, call it a hunch," Sly said, focusing the binoc-u-com on the item the female feline had tossed to him: a red rose with one of his own calling cards on the stem, just like the one he had left Carmelita after his dance with her in Rajan's palace.

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. A Dance of Death

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Chapter 7: A Dance of Death

It was hard for Bentley to find the gang a direct flight to India from Haiti, but he was able to pull it off by calling in a number of favors from his Thiefnet allies. To tell the truth, he would've been more comfortable going back to their headquarters in France first to gather some more supplies and plan things out, but Sly had been insistent on heading straight there. While Carmelita was in danger, Sly would be thinking more with his heart than his head.

Still, once they'd actually made it to Haiti, Bentley had seen the method to Sly's seeming madness. Their old safehouse, the place they'd planned the initial assault on Rajan's "ancestral palace," was in remarkably good condition. Sure there was some dust here and there, but not really any more than they dealt with at home. In short order, everything was up and running smoothly.

Too smoothly in fact. "You guys do know she knows we're here, right?" Bentley asked, wheeling his chair over by the table.

"I expect nothing less Bentley," Sly said, leaning back in his chair as he leafed through the Thievius Racoonus. "But I do think you're worrying about this too much. She won't do anything to us here; it would ruin her game. And to the Vixen, it's all about the Game."

Bentley flinched slightly at the emphasis Sly placed on the word "Game," but Murray just pounded his fist into his palm. "I hope I get to see some action this time," he said. "'The Murray' has a lot of frustration to 'talk' out with someone."

"'Talk' out?" Bentley asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That's right, talk out," Murray confirmed. Then a sadistic smile crossed his face. "Unfortunately for everyone here, I talk with my fists of flame."

Bentley shook his head and started to wheel over to the projector he'd set up but stopped when he saw Sly heading for the exit. "And where are you going?" he asked archly.

"The Vixen left the rose for a reason," Sly said, adjusting the cap on his head. "It's obvious she's waiting for me in Rajan's ballroom, and I'm not about to keep her waiting this time."

Bentley sighed but could not refute Sly's logic. "Be careful, all right? Like you said, for her it's all about the Game. After bringing us this far, I can't see her making it that easy on you."

"I may be many things Bentley, but I'm no fool." Sly tipped his hat to his friends and then slunk out of the safehouse. The first thing he noticed was that the drawbridge leading into the palace was up. "Hmm, looks like I'm not as welcome here as I was in Haiti," he thought, creeping downriver to where he knew he could access the palace another way.

Just as there had been the first time he was here, three very sharp and pointy rocks stretched across the river that served as the palace's moat right near where the river became a waterfall. It was a simple matter for him to use his family's Ninja Spire Jump to get across, almost too much of a simple matter. She had to know that he'd enter the palace like this, so it had to be a trap. Maybe...

Sly shuddered as he remembered the moss that had been draped in specific locations along the branches back in Haiti. "She wouldn't go that far, would she?" he asked himself. When he considered what would happen if she had, he decided it was better if he didn't take any chances. Before he jumped, he carefully scraped the jagged rocks with his cane, making sure none of them were slippery in any way.

Fortunately for him, they weren't. He made it across the trio of rocks safely and landed softly on the ledge, using his reflexes to sneak along the ledge to the wooden bridge. But he'd been so concerned in checking the rocks that he'd neglected to check the bridge. As soon as he stepped on the bridge, his right foot broke through the slats and the rest of him nearly followed. If he hadn't hooked his cane on the bridge's railing, he would've been going for a nice long plunge.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" he scolded himself after he'd gotten free, adding in a few smacks to his own head with his cane for good measure. The stars that exploded in his vision let him know that this was an even more stupid idea, to his chagrin.

When his vision cleared, he jumped across the rest of the bridge and hung a left. He made his way up a wide staircase and into the palace's main courtyard. The fountain there, a representation of Rajan if he remembered correctly, had been replaced by a statue of the Vixen smirking down at him with her tail wrapped around her waist and hips. "Well, she's a lot easier on the eyes," he muttered, running toward the palace.

He ran across the bridge and started into a covered hallway, but he stopped. He knew this hallway would bring him near the firepit from which he could access a series of staircases that led to the main door of the ballroom, but something was warning him. Once he entered this hallway, there were way too many places for the Vixen to spring a trap on him. No, he would get there another way.

The last time Sly was here, he did his best to avoid as many guards as he could. Well, perhaps avoid wasn't the right word; stealthily snuck up on sounded much better. All the better to pick their pockets, he reasoned. But with Rajan out of commission, last Sly heard, the tiger was a carpet salesman, all his guards had left to find other "gainful" employment. So the palace was deserted, and Sly knew of a different and much more direct way he could access the ballroom, one that the Vixen might not have expected him to take.

Sly stepped back from the hallway and ran alongside a nearby building. He jumped on a covered basket, using it to vault up to a canopy, and from the to the roof of the building. A vine ran from the roof to a balcony that looked over the rest of the palace and Sly easily Rail Walked across it. From there, it was an easy walk up a flight of stairs to the front doors. Sly knocked on the doors with his cane.

The eyeslat in the left door opened and Sly could see a very familiar ice blue mask with purple eyes through it. "May I help you, 'Sir?'" she asked in a very haughty voice.

Sly scowled at the tone of her voice, eerily reminiscent of the goon who had guarded the door once before. "You know why I'm here," he said, brandishing his cane. "Now let me in and let Carmelita go!"

"Do you got a tux?" she asked.

Sly slammed his cane against the door, but the Vixen didn't even flinch. "I don't even remember what I did with that monkey suit!"

"Why don't you head back to your safehouse?" the Vixen purred in her usual voice, dropping the affected accent. "I'm sure your friends have found the little surprises I left for you. I do so hope you'll find them... intriguing. Au revoir, Ringtail."

"Wait!" Sly yelled, trying to shove his cane into the open slat. But the Vixen was too quick and closed it before he had even moved, making Sly slam his cane off the wood. He could hear the Vixen's mocking laughter as she walked away from the door.

Sly held his cane between his hands like he was going to swing at that door over and over, but he knew from experience that it would be fruitless. He felt like yelling, screaming, demanding her to come out and face him, but he refused to give her the satisfaction. Turning his back on the door, fairly sure she was somehow still watching him, he methodically walked back down the stairs.

When he stepped on the balcony he broke into a sprint, jumping over the edge and landing in front of the bridge. Now out of sight of the Vixen, or so he hoped, he freely vented his anger on the bags of now rotting fruit, splattering them against the walls of the buildings they sat against. He knew it had no purpose to it, but it sure made him feel better. After he had obliterated every bag in sight, he stomped across the bridge and didn't stop until he reached the drawbridge.

He was going to leave the same way he came in, but something the Vixen had told him came to mind. "She left surprises for us?" Sly said aloud, looking at the drawbridge. "Something tells me I might need their help. Might as well open this up so they can get in with me."

Instead of veering left, Sly veered right. He ran up a staircase that led to the top of the palace's wall and looked around. The winch that controlled the drawbridge was in the same place it had been, but it looked unlocked. Sly approached it cautiously, checking every step with his cane before putting his foot down. But nothing was there; nothing could even be found on the winch itself. "I thought for sure she'd put something here," he thought, pulling the lever to lower the drawbridge. But there was nothing he could see, not even when the drawbridge touched down on the opposite bank of the river moat. However, as he jumped over the wall to land on the drawbridge he failed to notice the countdown timer that had turned on under the platform on which the winch rested.

Sly ran across the drawbridge to the tunnel that led to the safehouse and found Murray waiting for him. "Hey big guy," he said, leaning up against the wall. "What's going on?"

"You'd better come with me Sly," Murray said in a slightly heavy voice. "Bentley found some things that you just have to see."

Sly followed Murray inside and wasn't surprised to see Bentley at the table. What did surprise him were the three packages that sat on the table in front of Bentley along with a darkly lacquered wooden box. Each package was wrapped differently; one was wrapped in dark blue, one in olive green, and the third was bright pink. All of the papers were covered in snowflakes and the calling card of the Vixen.

Bentley watched Sly's face carefully. For the most part, it appeared that Sly was taking things rather calmly. But Bentley knew Sly too well; he could see the very slight widening of Sly's eyes, the one breath he took that was deeper than normal. He knew that Sly was surprised, shocked even, but he knew that it was also going to get worse. "You'd better sit down Sly," Bentley said, adjusting his glasses.

"I hate when you say things like that," Sly muttered, falling into the seat across from Bentley. "What are all these things?"

"Well, I would be able to tell you, if I'd been allowed to open them." Sly's eyebrow quirked up at Bentley's choice of words and Bentley chuckled dryly. "What don't I just show you what I mean?" he asked.

Sly watched as Bentley opened the lacquered box and pressed a button inside. Sly nearly fell out of his chair when the Vixen suddenly appeared in front of him on the table. Or rather, a two-foot tall version. "Take it easy Sly," Murray said, walking over and helping his friend up. "It's just a holo- whatzit."

"That's 'hologram' Murray," Bentley enunciated clearly. "And shush now. I want Sly to hear what she's saying."

"Greetings Sly Cooper," the image of the Vixen said. "Your friends have already heard my tale as evidenced by the second button being pressed. I suggest you listen to me carefully because if you need to hear it again, only one button remains; the box will self-destruct after that message is played.

"But let me get to the point, since by now your time is most assuredly limited," she continued. "Each of the three packages in front of you holds a clue that needs to be deciphered in order for you to open the closet that contains that lovely purple tuxedo of yours. Each clue will provide you with part of the key, but it will up to you to figure out how they fit together. And no, it would not be a good idea try to pick the lock. If you place anything in the keyhole except for the key then the flamethrowers I've rigged inside the closet will ignite and torch the tux. Then you'll never get inside the ballroom to where your precious Carmelita waits.

"Don't take too long now," she added with a smirk. "You know how I feel about being kept waiting. And if I know you like I know I do, you've already triggered my timer. The LED readout inside the box lets you know how much longer I'll wait for you before I get bored. And if I get bored, bad things happen to anyone I consider competition. I'll be seeing you soon Ringtail. Oh and Bentley? Consider this my permission to open everything up."

Sly swiped his cane angrily at the fading hologram. He'd kept his cool right up until the end, and he was proud of himself for doing so. When she'd thrown Carmelita's own parting words to him when he'd paraglided from the chopper that was supposed to take him to Interpol in his face, however, he'd lost his cool for a second. "I have got to stop letting her get to me," he all but snarled.

"Yes, she seems to be particularly good at that, doesn't she?" Bentley asked drolly. "While you've been venting your frustrations, I've opened up the packages. They seem to be fairly straightforward, and that's what worries me."

Sly looked over the opened parcels and his eyes narrowed. Laying on the pink paper was a large ruby, easily about half Sly's height. On the inside of the olive green paper was the number "46583271" printed in reddish-orange ink. Resting on the dark blue paper was part of a charred and splintered timber bearing part of a steel ring attached to it. "Straightforward is right," Sly muttered, picking up the ruby. "This isn't like her at all. What's she playing at now?"

"Maybe they're so easy to decipher because we don't exactly have much time," Bentley observed. "According to the timer in the box, we're down to thirty-nine minutes and...thirty-eight seconds."

"So which one do we go after first?" Murray asked, pounding his fist into his palm. "I wouldn't mind taking my chances against those elephants right now!"

Sly looked at Murray in a little surprise. While he knew his hippo friend was far from stupid, he usually relied on Sly or Bentley to decipher any clues and tell him what to do. That way he could just charge in and bust things up, his favorite pastime. "Hold on there Murray," Sly said. "Why do you think you're going to tangle with elephants?"

Murray looked down at Sly, a look on his face that Sly had only seen on Bentley when he knew something no one else did and was about to gleefully explain it. It looked so out of place on Murray that Sly nearly didn't register when he began to speak. "It's really very easy Sly," Murray said calmly, placing his hands on the table. "We found three wrapped packages and there are three of us. Not only that, but the wrapping paper used for each one corresponds to the colors Bentley uses for our holographic markers, so it's pretty obvious the Vixen means for us to handle whichever one was inside the one wrapped with our colors.

"Now as for why I know I'm going to deal with elephants," Murray continued, really getting into this now, "just look at that ruby. You stole six just like it for Bentley to make that saw I used to cut free the Clockwerk wings from Rajan's throne. And since you got them from Rajan's prized elephants, it's obvious that whatever she has planned for me is in that elephant pen where they were kept. Now, it might not be elephants that I have to deal with, but odds are it will be.

"I'm not that good with numbers, but I'm pretty sure that code is the one you had to find to let me and Bentley into Rajan's vault room. You know, the one where Bentley had to do his hacking thing to get control of the winch? Whatever's there is for Bentley, I'm just not sure how we'll get him inside with his wheelchair and all. Hopefully those doors will still be open so he can just wheel himself in.

"And now on to your package Sly. I wasn't there when Bentley blew up the bridge to the guest house, but I'll bet the van that the support beams looked like this. My guess is that something's waiting for you in that guest house. The only problem will be getting you over there with no bridge. But you might be able to paraglide there and back. It's a risk we just have to take. For now though, we all really need to get in place. We won't have time to go after these separately."

Sly's expression of a little surprise turned into a full fledged, jaw dropped, eyes wide expression of disbelief. Had he been knocked on the head and woken up in this strange alternate universe where Murray had somehow acquired Bentley's brains? Of all the possible explanations Sly could come up with, that seemed to be the most plausible. Bentley's expression mirrored Sly's, but was tinged with something else. Jealousy? Anger perhaps? Whatever it was, Sly couldn't tell for sure, but it was definitely there. "Well," the turtle began in a stilted, clipped voice, "since you don't need me to figure all this out, I guess we'd better get going. Just stay in touch and meet back here at the safehouse when you get your part of the key. Good luck everyone, something tells me that we're going to need it."

Murray was out the door almost before Bentley had stopped speaking, lumbering toward the palace as fast as his large frame would allow. He ran across the drawbridge and down the main street, moving across the bridge with ease. But when he came to where Sly had begun jumping around to climb to the ballroom's main doors, he hung a left and walked up a small, wide staircase.

His memory served him well and he was soon standing in front of the elephant's paddock. He'd heard how the elephants had easily knocked Sly off their backs and Murray had wanted to try his strength against them since. He threw open the doors only to dive out of the way as an elephant thundered past him, its eyes glowing red. "Guys," Murray said into his own binoc-u-com, "we have a big problem here."

"What's wrong Murray?" Sly asked. "I'm almost in position to try and paraglide across the chasm."

"Well, you got an easier job than I do Sly. It looks like this elephant is hopped up on spice, and it's on a rampage."

"Murray, you have to find that elephant and get the key piece off it," Sly pleaded. "Without your part, it doesn't matter if we get ours. And without the key, Carmelita is--"

"No worries Sly," Murray said, his voice hard. "'The Murray' would never let an innocent citizen suffer at the hands of a criminal." Though it really wasn't his thing, Murray jumped on a boost basket and used it to grab onto the edge of a nearby building's roof. It took most of his strength to hoist himself up on the roof, but he was able to do so in a fairly short amount of time.

Murray brought his binoc-u-com back to his face and peered through it, trying to find the spice-maddened elephant. The elephant wasn't really that hard to find, seeing that it was loudly trumpeting its presence as it barreled down the narrow streets and alleyways. The damage its large frame was causing was intense; Murray had to admit that it was potentially even more impressive than his own Thunder Flop. "It's time this elephant was shown the true meaning of devastation," he muttered, focusing his binoc-u-com on the key piece hanging from the elephant's headdress down between its eyes.

While Murray moved to cut off the elephant, Bentley was deep in concentration with the upper level of Rajan's vault room. The door leading inside had been open as Murray had hoped, so it was a simple matter for Bentley to gain access. The first thing he'd seen was the key piece that was secured in a cage with two electric locks. The second were the two terminals he'd hacked the last time he was here, both on and humming with power.

"This looks fairly easy," Bentley thought, wheeling over to the terminal on his left and typing away. The cyber defenses were laughably simple, but there were quite a lot of them. The only reason it took him three minutes to bypass it was because of the sheer number of them. He inserted his hacking code into the waiting slot and was gratified to hear the first lock disengage.

"And now for the second one," he said, wheeling over to the other terminal and doing the same thing. The defensive scheme was exactly the same as the first terminal and he passed through it just as easily. But about two minutes in, he heard a clicking sound. He quickly finished his hacking, unlocking the second lock in about the same time he had unlocked the first. But as he turned around to collect the key, he noticed that the first lock had re-engaged.

"This is bad," he realized, turning around to watch the terminal he had just hacked. It was then that he noticed a countdown timer in the corner of the screen. "She didn't," he muttered, fixing his gaze on the timer until it hit triple zero. As soon as it did, the second lock also re-engaged and he was right back where he'd started.

"Why that little..." he growled. "So much for this being simple." He knew now just how crafty the Vixen was. As simple as it was to hack each terminal, hacking the second before the first restored itself was going to be nearly impossible. Bentley knew that he was expected to just try to hack into the terminals madly, hoping that he could get through both somehow. But the timing was too precise; it was close enough to give him enough hope to attempt it, but he would never get closer than five seconds from his goal. "There has to be another way. I just have to find it."

As Bentley paused and cogitated on the issue, Sly had managed to land on the ground next to the guest house. He'd had a few inches to spare, more than enough for a thief like him. The way back would be a bit more difficult, but the spires above the minarets should give him enough height to complete his return trip.

He walked inside the front door, a little surprised to find the lights inside the building on. He looked around, wondering which of the five rooms his key piece would be in. Of all the doors he could see, only the one that led to room 103 was ajar, the room that had been Rajan's own. "Well, that only makes sense," he said, pushing open the door fully and walking inside.

The room looked like a tornado had touched down, a testament to just how much Sly had wrecked it while looking for the dance shoes of the tuxedo he had "borrowed" the last time he was in India. Sly couldn't help but smile as he remembered just how much fun it had been to wreck Rajan's things, and how much more fun it would be to do it again.

When he climbed the stairs leading to Rajan's bed, he noticed that something was terribly out of place. In sharp contrast to the rest of the room, the bed was impeccably made. Not even one tassel on the expensive silken pillows was out of place. Sly couldn't help but smirk; either his part of the key was hidden in that bed, or it was a rather obvious trap. It could even be both, but there was only one way to know for sure.

Sly hooked the tip of his cane on the edge of the purple bedcover and slowly ulled it back, ready for anything to happen. But nothing happened save for a white sheet to be revealed. Shrugging, Sly hooked the tip of that and pulled it back only to find a similar green sheet underneath it. Repeating the motions again allowed a red sheet to be seen.

After he had revealed both a black and a yellow sheet, Sly was getting annoyed. If he was dealing with anyone but the Vixen, he probably would've just ripped the rest of the sheets off the bed. But that was probably the one thing that would trigger the Vixen's trap. So he continued to peel away the layers through brown, orange, dark blue, light blue with the Vixen on it...

Sly stopped himself from going any further, and just in time too. His cane was already hooked onto the top of that sheet preparing to remove it as well by the time his brain had registered that this sheet was different. The image of the Vixen looked to be screened directly into the sheet's fabric in all its impressive detail.

She still wore her mask, and her indigo painted lips were set in that infuriating yet alluring smirk, but that was the only thing he recognized on her. Instead of wearing her usual skintight ice blue bodysuit with purple boots, gloves, and belt, this image showed her in nothing but a translucent ice blue teddy that left her barely decent, covering only the bare minimum necessary between her shoulders and her thighs. And Sly found that if he stared hard enough, he could just make out her...

Sly forced his gaze away, feeling a blush rising in his cheeks and his blood heating in his veins. Despite everything she had done to him, everything she was doing to him, he could not escape the fact that she was an extremely attractive woman who excited him as much as she repulsed him. And she knew it too. That's what made it even more intolerable.

He closed his eyes to gather his courage and looked at the sheet again. This time he noticed some writing next to the image's head and forced himself to look at that instead of where his eyes kept trying to go. "'I hope you had fun undressing the bed,'" he read silently, "'I just wish it was me you were undressing. Maybe next time we meet. For now, take your part of the key. I'll be seeing you soon, Ringtail.'" The short note was signed with on of the Vixen's calling cards and an indigo imprint of her lips.

Sly did his best to ignore the flash of heat that ran through his body at the thought of undressing the Vixen. "I'm here to save Carmelita," he reminded himself. That was all it took to make the fire in his blood turn to ice and get himself refocused on his goal.

He searched the sheet in a detached and formal manner, no longer allowing himself to be affected by the Vixen's image. Laying in one on the image's hands was what looked to be the shaft of a key. Sly used his cane to pull the key piece off the bed and into his hand, his body tensed and ready to bolt from the room at the first sign of a trap. But once again, nothing happened. "She's really got me all fouled up," Sly muttered, kicking the edge of the bed.

The kick didn't move the bed much, but it was enough to dislodge a pressure sensitive button laying beneath the rest of the sheets. A button that, now that it was on the floor, began beeping in a very urgent manner. "Oh boy!" Sly exclaimed, diving down to the main floor and sprinting from the room. He exited the room just as the bed blew up, spewing tons of confetti everywhere. Sly poked his head back into the room just in time for a long and curly strip of paper to land across his nose. Rolling his eyes, he strode out of the building, his piece of the key held tightly in his hand.

As Sly climbed the outside of the guest house in preparation of making his return trip to the guest house, Bentley looked up from his thoughts and glared at the two terminals before him. "She couldn't have made it that simple," he thought suddenly. He wheeled himself back in front of the first terminal and hacked his way through it, taking slightly less than three minutes this time. But before he moved to the next terminal, he simply unplugged the cable that led from the first terminal to the locked cage. The countdown on the terminal continued unabated, but when it reached triple zero the lock failed to re-engage.

"Eureka!" Bentley shouted, wheeling himself confidently over to the other terminal and beginning his hacking there. "That's what she gets for trying to match wits with me!"

His happiness was short-lived, however, as the scope of this terminal's defenses had increased exponentially. "Pride goeth before a fall," he quoted as his hacking code was simultaneously decimated by no less than ten system defenses at the same time. "Still, there hasn't been a system who has stood up to me yet, and this will not be the first."

It took a lot of time, more time than Bentley would ever admit to, but he finally hacked through the system. Just as he started to celebrate, he noticed that the countdown timer in the corner had started and was down to five seconds! Thinking quickly, he grabbed hold of the terminal and knocked it off its stand, wrecking it beyond all further usage, but preventing it from re-engaging the second lock. "You were a worthy adversary," he intoned as he retrieved his part of the key, a small knob by which the key would be held and turned. "You deserved a far more fitting end than this. Forgive me for what I had to do."

Bentley rolled himself out the same way he got in, idly wondering how the others were doing. As he wheeled down the main street toward the drawbridge that led to the safehouse, he got half his answer. "Yee ha!" Murray yelled from atop the elephant's back as it dashed across the street in front of Bentley.

Bentley's jaw just about hit the floor. Surely he hadn't just seen what he thought he had, right? He cautiously rolled himself up to the corner that Murray and the elephant had disappeared around and his jaw dropped even further at what he saw. Murray was on the back of the elephant, but he was holding on with one hand while the other hand waved wildly in the air. It was like watching some kind of extreme rodeo.

"Do your worst elephant!" Murray taunted even as the elephant bucked wildly and tried to slam him into a building. "It will take a lot more than that to get 'The Murray' off your back."

The elephant ran into the central square and around the fountain, but it was obviously moving slower than it had been. When it bucked, it barely got its legs off the ground. After only about three or so circuits of the fountain, the elephant's legs buckled and it tilted sideways, falling into the fountain and smashing the statue of the Vixen to bits.

Murray hopped off the elephant before it landed and stood next to its head. "Rest now," he told his fallen foe, lifting the teeth of the key from where it lay on the center of its head. "'The Murray' acknowledges your efforts and looks forward to the day we meet again on the battlefield."

"Murray!" Bentley cried, hurriedly rolling up to his friend. "Are you all right? That ride looked painful and dangerous!"

Murray smiled down at the turtle, touched by the worry in his friend's voice. "Your concern is appreciated, citizen, but ultimately unneeded. It will take far more than what this elephant was able to do to harm 'The Murray.' Come, let us return to the safehouse where Sly will hopefully be waiting for us."

It took a minute or two to return to the safehouse, and as Murray had predicted Sly was sitting in his chair waiting for them. "What took you?" he inquired calmly, his feet up on the table as he leaned so far back in his chair it was nearly tipping over.

Both Bentley and Murray crossed their arms and glared at him, but it was almost impossible to remain angry at Sly for very long. "How much time do we have left?" Bentley asked instead of giving voice to the cutting remarks in his mind.

Sly chuckled as if he could see the thoughts running around in Bentley's brain and it amused him. He dropped his feet from the table and sat up suddenly, laying his piece of the key on the table. "About eight minutes," he said, glancing at the open box. "Still plenty of time to get there."

Bentley collected all the pieces of the key and fit them together. "Here," he said, tossing Sly the completed key, "you open it then."

Sly caught the key in mid-air and sauntered over to the closet. The key fit the lock perfectly and it opened easily, the door swinging wide open of its own accord. Hanging inside, surrounded by flamethrower nozzles as the Vixen had warned, was the tuxedo. It looked to be recently cleaned and freshly pressed. "I'm coming Carmelita," he swore under his breath, carefully lifting the tuxedo off its hanger in case there was another trap. There wasn't.

Sly got changed in what seemed record time, leaving a full four minutes for him to get to the ballroom doors. As he had to walk and couldn't really jump in this outfit, he knew it would take longer than normal to get there. He kept a countdown of the seconds in his head as he stepped out of the safehouse, trying to hurry as much as he could without doing any damage to the tuxedo. When he reached the doors and knocked on them again, his count was down to thirty.

The wooden slat in the door opened once more and the Vixen's mask peered out. "Do you have your tuxedo now, sir?" she asked, her voice lilting just slightly in her amusement.

"But of course," Sly answered, adjusting his bowtie. "I am here to dance after all." The slat in the door slid shut and Sly could hear the lock that held the door closed click. He waited for a minute to see if the Vixen would open the door for him, but she did not. Pursing his lips slightly, he pushed the door open and strode inside just as his mental count reached zero. A part of him was really bothered by that; did she really know him and his friends so well that she could plan their actions down to the second? If that was the case, then she knew him better than he knew himself.

Unlike the last time he had been here, the ballroom was mostly empty, holding only a handful of individuals. The Vixen was draped across Rajan's throne provocatively, her arms raised above her head as she arched her back over one of the armrests. "So glad you could join us Cooper," she purred in a soft and seductive voice. "And you're right on time too! For a change."

Sly's eyes narrowed as they focused on the other occupants of the room. "What's she doing here?" he demanded, pointing at the femme feline he had recently seen in Haiti. "And where's Carmelita?"

The cat's blue eyes were downcast, searching the floor as her calico hair partially hid her face from view. She was attired in what looked to be the exact same black dress that Carmelita had worn when they had danced together. It didn't fit the feline as well as it had Carmelita, but it fit well enough.

"Oh her?" The Vixen asked, slowly sitting up one vetebra at a time. "Well, you said you were here to dance, right? Therefore you need a dance partner. As for your beloved Carmelita..." The Vixen picked up her cane that had been resting against the side of the throne and tapped the bottom of a cage that was suspended from the ceiling winch. A low moan sounded at the tapping and a familiar orange tail fell out limply between the bars.

"What have you done to her?" he accused, clenching his fists. He wished he had brought his cane with him, but he hadn't wanted to take the risk that she would consider him not properly attired and refuse him entry.

The Vixen smirked at him, but this one was half sneer. "She's unharmed, just drugged for now. What I do to her all depends on you Cooper."

"What's your game now?"

"It's simple really," the Vixen said, standing up gracefully and sashaying toward him. "I've seen pictures of the beauty that was your tango with Carmelita. I have to admit, I nearly gave up on you before I even met you when I saw that. But then I had to wonder, was it because there was some true feeling between the two of you, or were you two just that damn good? I have to know."

"So what? You called me here to dance? You have got to be kidding."

"Oh believe me Ringtail, this is no joke. You and my subordinate over there will dance the exact same dance that you shared with your Carmelita."

Sly crossed his arms, fighting not to take a step back as the Vixen advanced on him. "And if I refuse?"

The Vixen looked at Sly intently, as if she were sizing him up. "You won't, but if you refuse, then everything in that cage becomes a pincushion. And the same thing happens if you make a mistake."

"Oh that's rich," Sly muttered. "So that's the game huh? No matter how well I dance, your lackey over there will mess up at just the right moment to give you all the reason you need to get Carmelita out of the way."

"You disappoint me Cooper," the Vixen growled softly. "I would never stoop to such a dirty trick. There's no honor in that."

"And there's honor in kidnapping someone completely innocent?"

The Vixen bared her teeth in a snarl, and Sly couldn't help but notice they seemed a little more jagged than he remembered. "Your precious Carmelita is far from innocent. It's her fault that we're all here today. If she had just kept her nose out of our business... But enough about that for now." she said, recovering her composure.

She used the hook of her cane to lift the feline's face. A steel collar was around her neck, one with a flashing red light on it. "To answer your question," the Vixen continued, "nothing will happen to Ms. Fox if Maia over here makes a mistake. She, however, will not be so lucky. For each step she misses, the collar around her neck gets a little tighter. If she misses too many..."

"You are sick," Sly spat, turning his back on her to show his disdain.

"Perhaps," the Vixen allowed, taking Maia by the arm and shoving her into Sly. "But you have no choice, now do you? And don't worry, her collar will fall off once the music ends."

Sly stumbled when he felt Maia collide with his back, and he turned around to catch her instinctively. "You all right?" he asked her in an low voice.

Maia nodded as she regained her footing. "I'm sorry about this," she started to say but stopped as tango music began to play.

"Just follow my lead," Sly said, taking her hand in his and wrapping his other arm around her back.

Maia placed her free hand on his shoulder and assumed the starting pose for the tango they would be dancing. "Try to stop me," she said with what was supposed to be a playful smirk, but it came out as more of a grimace.

Despite the situation he found himself forced into, Sly couldn't help but feel his heart quicken at the perceived challenge. He led her into three sliding steps, a very simple opening. Maia matched his moves easily, then led him into the same three steps. Sly led her into two sliding steps and a twirl which was easily followed and matched.

Sly started to feel a little more relaxed as he and Maia performed two quick kicks, a sliding step, and a stomp only to perform the same moves again with Maia in the lead. As he twirled her around in preparation for another sliding step and a dip, he actually thought he might be starting to enjoy this. "You dance very well," he told her after she had mirrored his moves and the music allowed them a moment to breathe.

"I suppose I do," Maia said in a sultry purr. Dancing the tango with such a capable partner had ignited the fire in her blood, regardless of the danger present. "But then if I didn't, that world championship trophy on my mantle would mean nothing, would it?"

Sly was so surprised by this pronouncement that he nearly missed the cue to begin dancing again. He turned over this bit of information as they did a sliding step, faced each other for a beat, then stepped again. "A champion, is she?" he pondered as she led him into the exact same moves. "That would explain why she's so good. Even better than Carmelita."

He allowed his body to go on automatic for the moment; he'd relived this dance with Carmelita in his dreams so many times he almost didn't even need to listen to the music. A sliding step, a twirl, then face each other. Let her lead through the same moves. Two quick twirls, look up at the ceiling, lower her into a dip. Let her lead again. A sharp stomp, a sliding step, and a flourish kick.

Sly looked at her after she had led him through the last series of moves and the music entered the second and final bridge. "A champion, huh?" he asked, giving voice to his thoughts.

Maia met his gaze easily and unflinchingly. "Six times running," she purred proudly, a saucy smirk on her lips. "Now let's finish this up so we can both get what we deserve."

Sly nodded and set his arms in position as the music's beat picked up again. Two quick kicks then two sliding steps were executed flawlessly both when he led and when she led. A sliding step, two quick twirls, and another sliding step followed. Maia nearly forgot the second twirl when it was her turn, but Sly managed to slip it in while still making it look like she was the one leading him.

"Thanks," she whispered, a bead of sweat running down her face at the close call.

"My pleasure," Sly said, leading her into a sliding step, then looking up at the ceiling, and two quick sliding steps.

Maia was careful to follow all four of the moves this time. But her nervousness was evident when she almost mistook Sly's lead of a sliding step, stomp, kick, and dip as a sliding step, two stomps, and a dip. "Relax Maia," she reminded herself, trying to focus on the steps as she repeated Sly's moves. "Tense up and lose, that was the first thing you were taught."

Sly felt Maia losing her composure and gently pressed his hand against her back to make her look him in the eyes. Once he had locked gazes with her, he led her into three quick twirls and the lifted his face to the ceiling, still looking at her out of the corner of his eye. It wasn't much, but the eye contact helped Maia find her confidence again and she managed to match his moves easily.

Sly smiled encouragingly at Maia as he led her into the final three moves: a sliding step, a look at the ceiling, and finally a twirling dip. Maia found it in her to smile back as she performed the moves effortlessly and their tango came to an end. "Thank you so much for that," she said as he set her back on her feet.

"No trouble at all," Sly assured her. "Under different circumstances, I'm sure this would've been very enjoyable."

"I have no doubt of that," Maia said, catching the collar as it fell from around her neck. "If you ever think about changing careers, I'm looking for a new partner."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sly said, bowing to her as she curtsied. "And now, if you'll excuse me--"

"By all means," Maia said, stepping aside as the Vixen walked up to them, clapping her hands slowly.

"Truly a wonderful performance," the Vixen said, still clapping her hands in a mocking manner. "Technically it was even more sound than the dance you shared with Carmelita. But there was something lacking, something that made it seem colder, more distant. I wonder what it could be."

Sly crossed his arms over his chest and stared coolly at the Vixen. "I know what it was missing, but why should I tell you? If you don't know what it is on your own, I could never explain it to you."

The mask hid her expression well, but Sly could still tell she was rolling her eyes. "I suppose you did fulfill my requirements," she said slowly, as if saying those words were painful to her. "I should fill my end of the bargain too. Though I don't recall ever saying what you would get if you played along."

Sly waved this aside as unimportant, an action that seemed to surprise the Vixen. "All I want is for you to answer one question. Where is the Vixen?"

The look of surprise on the Vixen's face was so comical that Sly only barely held himself back from laughing. "What kind of nonsense question is that?" she demanded. "I'm right here in front of you!"

"Yes you are," Sly agreed. "But you're not the Vixen. I don't know who you are, but I know who you're not."

While the Vixen, or whoever it was that was dressed as her, spluttered indignantly, she failed to notice Maia creeping up behind her with the white and platinum cane in hand. With a hoarse cry, she swung the cane into the side of the "Vixen," knocking her away from Sly and down to the ground. "You've gone too far this time Luka," Maia snarled, her arms trembling in anger as she adjusted her grip on the cane she held. "What were you thinking putting that collar on me?"

Sly glanced at the fallen female and was not too surprised at what he saw. Her mask had fallen off, but it was enough that Sly could see her features were more lupine than vulpine. "What am I thinking?" the arctic wolf growled, sweeping the mask away as she glared at Maia. "What are you thinking? You dance with this guy once and suddenly you're on his side? What about the plan?"

"You shot the plan to Hell the moment you put the collar on me! The Vixen would've never allowed you to do that!"

"Stop kidding yourself! She's the one who told me to!"

Maia looked like she had been slapped in the face, but she quickly recovered. "Damn you! Damn you and her! Forget these games; I'm going to tell Sly exactly where she is!"

Luka was on her feet in an instant. "Don't you dare--!" was all she got out of her mouth before Maia swung the cane she held so hard that the white handle shattered as the metal part struck Luka in the skull. It was a testament to her toughness that the wolf was not knocked out from that blow, and that it took an awkwardly executed, but very effect spinning kick to the face by Maia to put her on the ground unconscious.

Maia huffed a bit as she crossed her arms under her chest. "Nobody makes a fool out of me," she muttered, nudging the prone wolf with the toe of her high-heeled shoe. She turned back to Sly and did a double take at his open mouth. "What?"

"Why didn't you fight that well against me?" he asked.

Maia combed her hair behind her ears and shrugged. "I was told not to," she answered simply. "Look, Sly, I'm sorry about all this. I don't know when this game of the Vixen's got so out of hand, but it's time to end it. Luka here was supposed to send you down to Brazil on another wild chase, but no more. The Vixen is holding Carmelita in an abandoned scientific facility in Antarctica. She's at home there in the cold."

"I wish I had thought of that earlier," Sly said after he realized how much it made sense. "Listen Maia, you should get out of here. Once Luka comes to, she'll probably warn the Vixen I'm on my way. And you know she won't be happy with you."

"I can handle her," Maia said disdainfully, glancing at the still unconscious lupine. "You go save Carmelita. She needs you."

Sly nodded and turned to run outside when he noticed a sad expression cross the feline's face. "Is everything all right?"

Maia blinked, surprised at being caught, and pasted a smile on her face. "Just peachy," she tried to assure him, but she had wince at how fake it sounded. "All right, all right, I was just thinking. Another time, another place..."

She didn't have to continue for Sly to get her meaning, and he smiled slightly. "Anything's possible," he admitted. "But I have to say it would be more probable than possible."

Maia nodded gratefully and wiped a tear from the corner of her blue eye with a smile. Before she could let herself think about what she was doing, she hurried up to him and gathered him up in her arms, pressing her lips to his in a deep kiss.

Sly hadn't seen that one coming, but he instinctively responded to the kiss, his eyes closing. It was so full of need and longing that it would be easy to lose himself to it, especially when she added her tongue to the mix. But as right as it felt, it also felt wrong for just one reason: it wasn't Carmelita he was kissing. He pulled himself from her arms gently, breaking the kiss in the process. "I...I should go," he murmured.

"Yeah you should," Maia agreed, putting a brave face on. "I know I can't have you Sly, but you can't blame me for wanting a taste, can you? Don't answer that though, you're wasting time. Go on, get out of here, before I forget that I'm not supposed to be convincing you to stay."

Sly smiled and bowed his head to her one last time. He turned around and walked out of the ballroom, his mind a whirl. "Antarctica, huh?" he thought as he emerged into the open air. "Well, this won't be the first time I've dealt with a cold heart. I just hope it's the last."

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. An Icy Confrontation

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Chapter 8: An Icy Confrontation 

Quick Author's Note: A large apology for the delay of this chapter. My mom was diagnosed with ALS(Lou Gehrig's disease) and I haven't felt much like writing in the past months. I'm trying to get myself on track, but it's slow going. Please be patient with me. I assure you, it will be worth it. After I had finished the first draft of this, I asked fellow Sly Cooper fanfic author Kit Karamak to look it over. He made a lot of suggestions. Some I followed, others I didn't. But if anything looks weird, blame it on him, not me.

To say that Bentley had been unhappy when learning of the Vixen's true location was an understatement. He'd never liked the cold, and now that he was in a wheelchair it would be even worse. "Are you sure we can't just go somewhere else?" he asked plaintively. "You know, somewhere like...Tahiti?" The glare that Sly levelled at him was almost enough to freeze Bentley where he sat despite the fact that they had not left India yet, and Bentley had the distinct impression that he was folding in on himself.

"So what's our best option?" Sly asked, refusing to answer Bentley's inane request. While Bentley started checking the laptop for possibilities, Sly walked back into the closet to change out of his tuxedo. Could this be the real thing? Would he finally be able to find the Vixen and therefore find Carmelita as well?

As he began to work his bowtie apart and the cufflinks that clung to his wrists, he let his eyes close and let the events of an hour prior wash over him. After he'd left the ballroom, he had suddenly remembered that there'd been someone in that cage above Luka's head. He'd rushed back inside to find Maia in the process of tying up Luka, snarling a few choice insults at the unconscious wolf. Maia had been shocked to see him again so soon; she'd expected him to be halfway to Antarctica by now. He had seen on her face the slight hope that he had come back for her, and he'd hated to crush it by heading to the cage instead of into her arms.

He'd practically felt Maia's stare sadden slightly as he ran past her. He'd almost been tempted to look back at her until she'd just started laughing long and loud. He'd thought for a moment that she had cracked under the pressure or something, but then he'd actually gotten the cage lowered. Inside had been the equivalent of a slap across the face: a tape recorder and a mechanical tail that was set to twitch every few minutes.

Sly had stared at the cage for a time, muttering about his foolishness before his laughter had joined Maia's. A third voice had soon joined theirs, but it had been doing anything but laughing. The commotion Sly and Maia had been causing had finally woken Luka from her stupor and, upon finding out that she had been tied up rather effectively, had begun hurling every curse she knew at the mirthful pair. Some of it had been rather inventive, but not nearly on the scale of the Vixen/Rosalita confrontation he had witnessed.

Maia had stopped laughing after one comment that insulted not only her purity but that of her mother's as well. A cruel sneer had spread across her pretty face and her blue eye had sparked in anger. All in all, Sly had felt that the cold leer on Maia's normally demure visage was terribly out of place. "Go save your Carmelita," she'd said, slowly advancing on a helpless Luka. "You're not going to want to see this." Sly had entertained thoughts of stopping her, but a devious wink that she'd sent his way had reassured him enough to take his leave.

"Are you going to stand in there all day?" Bentley asked, interrupting Sly's reverie. "As much as I don't want to go somewhere that's nothing but snow and ice, I'd rather get there as soon as possible and get it over with."

"Sorry Bentley," Sly apologized. Something was niggling at the back of his mind and it seemed important, but he couldn't quite get a grip on it. "What have you got for us?" He quickly finished removing the tuxedo and gratefully pulled his familiar sweater back on his body.

"It's not good," Bentley admitted, typing some more on his laptop. "I've been able to find a few scientific bases in Antarctica, but only one that has been classified as 'abandoned'. It's an old military base that had been converted to study the effects of global warming on the ice shelf. And that brings me to why it's not good. Somehow the Vixen has been able to get the old military defenses operational. We'd have enough trouble getting through the ten foot tall electrified fence, but with the personal touches that the Vixen is sure to have included, it's going to be next to impossible to penetrate. Still, I probably would've never found this place without Maia's help, and the Vixen won't be expecting us. So we should have some element of surprise."

"And some surprise is all we need," Sly said with a smirk. "Good job Bentley, as always. How quick can you get us there?"

"I can have us there by the end of the week," Bentley answered with confidence.

Sly nodded and turned around to head back outside when he stopped in mid-step. "Hey Bentley, can you look something up for me while you're online? I finally figured out what's been bothering me."

"You mean there was something bothering you other than Carmelita and the Vixen?"

"It's just something Maia said to me while we were dancing. She said she was a world champion tango dancer, six times running. Can you look it up and see if she was telling the truth?"

Bentley's fingers paused above his laptop's keys for a second before he turned to look at Sly. "Is that really more important than making sure we get to Antarctica safely?" he asked, adjusting his glasses.

Sly tapped the hook of his cane against his lips as he thought. "Well, if she was telling the truth about that then we know we can absolutely trust her about everything else."

Bentley blinked a couple times as he digested Sly's reasoning. "I guess I can understand that," he admitted, turning back to his laptop and accessing a search engine. He started to type in the necessary information when he sensed Sly walk up to stand behind him. "Sly, you're hovering."

"It normally doesn't bother you," Sly pointed out, looking over his friend's shoulder at the screen.

"Well it's bothering me today," Bentley snapped, making Sly jump back in surprise. He could see his friend's hurt expression and Bentley sighed, rubbing his temples. "I'm sorry Sly. I'm just a little on edge right now. Why don't you go outside and I'll call you when I've found something."

Sly nodded and walked outside with his head slightly down. It wasn't like Bentley to snap at anyone like that, unless a mission was in danger of being compromised. Sly knew it was probably the stress getting to him just like it was getting to everyone else. But to have Bentley react like that... If they didn't resolve things with the Vixen soon, Sly was afraid the tensions would start to rip the team apart.

As Sly had expected of a self-proclaimed computer expert, Bentley found the information on Maia in less than ten minutes. The official World Ballroom Dancing Association website confirmed her claim of being a six-time champion as well as detailed the tragedy that had befallen her. Her partner, a black- furred chihuahua with the name of Pedro, had been caught in a building collapse just one month after winning their sixth title. He was still alive, but a steel beam had fallen across his back and paralyzed him from the neck down, ending his dancing career.

Instead of showing compassion, the WBDA committee had moved to strip them of their titles immediately so that they could be replaced with another team who could still dance. He hadn't even been released from the hospital when the decision was handed down. In a fit of rage, Maia had sworn revenge on the committee and disappeared into the underground. No one had heard of her since until she had turned up as part of the Vixen's gang.

Sly stared at the printout in his hand in distaste. "Bentley," he said folding up the paper slowly and deliberately, "when we're done with this, I think we should pay those offices a visit and deliver the trophy back where it belongs."

"I will make a note of that," Bentley promised. "But for now, let's me get back to my flight planning."

The route to Antarctica was a lot longer than Sly would have liked. From India, they had to travel through Japan to Australia and then charter a special plane to take them to the abandoned airfield that once served the science facility. When they landed at the airfield, they found an unpleasant surprise waiting for them. The runway had been recently cleared and the nearby control tower was fully stocked with supplies. Food, water, fuel, even snow chains for the van's tires and snowsuits for themselves. "So much for surprising her," Bentley groused, while Murray wasted no time outfitting the van.

To make matters even worse, once they neared the abandoned base they found a large igloo built just on the base's perimeter. It was fully outfitted with everything Bentley could ever want in a safehouse. It even had a projector and an internet port for his laptop! But instead of being happy about it, he was nearly foaming at the mouth in his anger. "She's just playing with us!" he raged, almost launching himself out of his wheelchair in his agitation.

Murray laid a heavy yet calming hand on his friend's shoulder, even though that hand took up most of his upper arm as well. "Relax Bentley," he said in his deep voice. "If the Vixen wants to play with us, then let that be her downfall. Think of how much sweeter the victory will be when we use the supplies she herself provided us with to beat her."

Bentley sat silently for a moment, then he smiled with evil intent. "I like the way you think Murray. OK, since she's so eager to help us make our assault on her, let's not keep the lady waiting."

Cooper tilted his head, Carmelita's safety still on his mind. "She's not the only lady who's waiting on us." Sly placed his paws on his hips then casually eased them down into his pockets.

"Quite right," said Bentley, adding, "I stand corrected. So..." The tortoise rubbed his hands together as if warming them up in unison to warming up the 'evil planning' section of his brain.

Sly smirked and sat down at the table. "So," he repeated, leaning forward over the table in his excitement, "how are we going to do this?"

Bentley adjusted the glasses on his face and plugged his laptop into the internet port. Once the laptop was booted up and ready to go, his fingers flew across the keyboard. "I've uploaded the blueprints of the base into the laptop. And I see the Vixen has made one critical error," he added. "Since her base is the only place around with internet access, the port she so graciously included in our igloo goes through her system. Therefore I can slip into her defense grid and hack it down for you. She may know we're here and she might even feel confident enough to offer us an Internet jack, but I've got a little surprise in store... She'll never know what hit her."

"Sounds a little too easy," Sly said, frowning in thought. "She's been really careful up to this point. Why would she make a mistake now?"

"We did throw her plans off, remember? Odds are she did not have this part of her plan detailed as well as she would have liked. If she can misjudge Maia then she can misjudge us, too. I don't doubt she would have caught this if we had played her game straight through, but since we took a shortcut, so to speak, she's trying to appear like she's in control when she's really scrambling to stay in control."

Sly shrugged. It did make sense when put like that, and that was what Bentley did. "And to think, just two minutes ago you were ranting and raving about how she was playing with us."

"I'm calmer now," Bentley said, calling up the hacking program in his computer. "And you know I'm at my best when I'm able to think calmly. Now please, let me have my silence so I can get us in."

Sly knew it could take a while for Bentley to do his thing, so he took to exploring the igloo to see what else it held. Off in a remote corner, he noticed a line of blue sparkling lights near the floor. He tapped the wall with his cane, not surprised to hear that it was hollow. "Hey guys, I found something," he called, using his cane to trace the outline of the door he'd discovered.

"Let me at it Sly," Murray said walking over. The crack was too small for him to slip his fingers into, so he just shattered the door with one "Fists of Flames" punch. "There you go, all nice and open for you."

Sly had ducked out of the way when Murray lit his hands on fire, but he'd still had a few ice shards get way too close for comfort. "Nice job Murray," he said, keeping his real thoughts inside. "Anything important in there?"

Murray looked inside the hidden room, then backed away quickly. "Umm, maybe you should see it for yourself," he said, running back over to Bentley without saying another word.

Sly scratched his head at Murray's unusual reaction. He turned toward the open room and said, "Oh come on, it can't be that...bad." He found his jaw dropping, again, as he saw what Murray had seen. A perfect ice sculpture of the Vixen awaited him, down to the last detail; it was even wearing a set of the Vixen's clothes though they bodysuit was partially undone. It would be so easy to just take off the bodysuit and see just how detailed the sculptor decided to get. Sly's eyes raked over the feminine figure, passed the swell of her sculpted bust and hourglass hips. His eyes drank in the luscious, curvaceous waistline then lowered further, down to...

Sly whirled around and stormed away. She was really testing the limits of his patience...in more ways than one. "Have you found anything yet?" he demanded a bit more harshly than he intended.

Bentley spun his wheelchair around and glared at Sly. "Do you really think that only two minutes is enough for me?" he asked in a falsely calm tone. When Sly looked embarrassed, Bentley's glare faded into a smirk. "Then I guess you don't know me very well, do you? We're all ready to go."

"I'm impressed. So, what are we waiting for then?"

After checking their gear, they headed toward the base. "I've set a delayed timer that will cut off electricity to the fence," Bentley explained as they neared the base. "It should also knock out any other surprises that she has planned. We'll have to move fast though; I can't keep the power off for long without her noticing it."

"Piece of cake," Sly mumbled, shielding his face against the bitter cold. "How much longer till it goes down?"

"It should be going down right...about...now!" And true to Bentley's words, the fence stopped sizzling with electricity right when Bentley said it would. "I'm unstoppable!" he crowed.

Sly chuckled as he used his cane to loosen a section of the fence. "Don't know what I'd do without you. Or you Murray. So let's show the Vixen exactly what the Cooper Gang is capable of."

"Stand back Citizen," Murray said, shoving his hands under the weakened fence. "This job is for 'The Murray'." It took some time, and a couple of strained muscles, but Murray was able to lift that part of the fence above his head. "Come on, I can't hold it up forever!"

Sly darted through the opening easily. Bentley was ready to follow, but he noticed that a spot on the back of Sly's suit glowed as he passed through the fence. His eyes narrowed in thought, then widened as the truth hit him. "Murray! Get out of there!"

"Huh?" Murray tried to ask, but was cut off as electricity arced through his massive form. He bellowed in pain, every muscle in his body seizing before he was blown backward into a pile of snow.

"Murray!" Sly and Bentley yelled. Bentley wheeled over to him while Sly looked for a way out. "Is he all right?" Sly asked, pacing back and forth agitatedly.

Murray moaned as he forced himself to stand up on shaky knees. "I'm... I'm all right," he said, leaning so heavily on Bentley's wheelchair that the metal creaked. "I'm just a little woozy."

"It looks like his snowsuit deflected most of the electricity," Bentley commented, looking Murray over. "He's lucky to have rubber boots; with so many layers of snow beneath our feet he would've been fried to a crisp." He shifted his weight slightly to counter-balance the hippo's weight against the side of his chair, just to ensure that it wouldn't capsize in the snow. "But I'd still rather get him back to the safehouse and check him over. You get inside and I'll contact you once Murray is comfortable."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," the Vixen called over their binoc- u-coms. "You see, I'm only interested in testing my skills against Cooper, not the Cooper Gang. Once you get into my lair, all communication with the outside world will be cut off. Just you and me Cooper, just like I've always wanted it to be."

"We don't have a choice," Sly said when Bentley tried to argue. "If I don't go in there right now, there's no telling what she's going to do to Carmelita. Take care of Murray. I'll take care of the Vixen."

Bentley nodded reluctantly as he helped Murray back to the safehouse. He looked over his shoulder at his best friend as he disappeared inside. "I hope you're ready for this Sly," he whispered as Murray reached out and opened the safehouse door.

Sly closed the base's door against the cold before struggling out of his snowsuit, glad to have the bulky thing off his body. The hallway was dimly lit by old fluorescent lights, the flickering sending weird shadows flittering across the wall.

He crept down the hallway, heading deeper into the base. He cringed as his normally silent steps echoed sharply through the building. Sly slowed down in an attempt to quiet his movements, but it had no effect. Now that he was actually paying attention to it, he realized that the floor felt rough, like something was stretched over it. He stopped and tapped his cane against the floor and wasn't surprised to hear the crinkling of aluminum foil over glass dust with each strike. "Clever girl," he muttered, taking off down the hallway at full speed now that it was pointless to sneak.

He had a rough idea of where he was headed thanks to the plans that Bentley had found. As he turned a corner, about halfway to his goal, he stopped himself short. The hall ahead was occupied, which he expected he would see eventually, but he wasn't quite sure what he was looking at. In front of him stood...sat...was a strange looking blue penguin.

Its black eyes were vacant as they stared at him, almost like they were looking through him. It wore a brown satchel around its chest and there was something strange growing out of its back. "Are they bat wings?" Sly considered, tilting his head slightly. But perhaps most disturbing were the scars and stitches that criss-crossed under its beak.

Sly looked around as the strange penguin continued to stare blankly at him, growing more and more nervous. "Umm, hi little penguin...thing?" he said calmly, backing away slowly.

The penguin snapped its head up as Sly spoke, its gaze now focusing squarely on him. A stupid grin split its yellow beak as it hopped up and down, flapping its arms. "Dood!" it yelled, waddling forward at a surprising speed.

Sly backed up a step or two, staring at the strange creature. It didn't look like it was going to stop, or even if it could, so he stepped aside at the last minute. The penguin ran right into the wall with enough velocity to knock itself out if not more.

But that's not what happened. As soon as it struck the wall it exploded with massive force, flinging Sly down the hallway and sending him skidding along the aluminum covered floor on his shoulder. He lay still for a moment as he slid to a stop, his body aching in ways he had never dreamed possible. "What the hell was that?" he wondered aloud, his eyes clenched tight against the pain.

After the pain subsided, Sly rolled to his stomach and slowly pushed himself off the ground. As he was about to try to stand up, a familiar crinkling sound caught his attention. He opened his eyes and found himself looking at a pair of webbed feet. "Uh oh," he whispered, tilting his face up. His gaze went up past the blue and white feathers, past the brown satchel, and fixed on two blank eyes staring into his.

Sly yelped and fell back on his backside, scurrying away as fast as he could. Those movements were enough to center the penguin's attention on him, the vacant eyes now full of purpose. Sly twisted fluidly to his feet, performing something halfway between a kippup and a somersault, and sprinted down the hallway. For a moment, he hoped that the penguin wasn't following him, but that hope was dashed as he heard "Dood!" echoing off the walls.

Sly turned a sharp corner, paying no heed to which way he was going. A few seconds later he heard two things in quick succession: the penguin hitting the wall and the penguin exploding. Because he wasn't that close to the point of impact this time, he wasn't hurt even though he was propelled forward. He tucked into a roll and rode the momentum out, uncurling back to his feet. "That's it!" he yelled. "If it weren't for Carmelita I'd be out of here right now! As it is, I'm in the mood for barbecued penguin!"

He stormed down the halls, trying to figure out which passage would bring him closer to his goal. He came to a T-intersection and chose the left hallway at random. He hadn't taken more than a single step when he saw one of those hated penguins waddle into sight. "Umm, not that way," he mused aloud, turning around quickly. But before he could take a step that way, another penguin appeared. "OK, back the way I came then." But to his dismay even that way had been blocked off by a penguin.

Sly looked around at the three penguins who were all looking back at him. He stayed as still as possible, hoping that at least one of them would get bored and waddle off somewhere. Unfortunately, they all fixed their gazes on him with that expression he had already learned to fear. Even as Sly was shaking his head, pleading with them not to do anything rash, they all ran toward him yelling "Dood!"

Sly backed against the wall, frantically searching for a way out. A hard object poked into his back, making him look down. There was a doorknob set into the wall that he hadn't noticed before. Without pausing to think about it, he grabbed the doorknob and pulled. The door opened and he darted behind it, slamming the door behind him.

He could hear the explosion fill the hallway, but the door didn't even shake from the force. "That's weird," he thought even though he didn't really care. He cracked the door open and glanced outside, hoping that all three penguins had done themselves in. All was clear. "Finally, something going my way," he said, a bit of his confidence returning.

As he thought about opening the door wider, the fur on the back of his neck rose. He was being watched, there was no mistaking this feeling. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the door. "Please, please don't let there be one of those penguins behind me," he begged turning around even though he really didn't want to.

He got his wish, but not how he wanted to. There wasn't one penguin waiting for him in the room he had hidden in; there were a hundred. Not all of them were blue this time however, and those with different colors were somewhat larger than the others. And they were all getting up to their feet gazing at him intently.

Sly didn't even bother with opening the door; he ran it down screaming at the top of his lungs. He dodged this way and that, not even caring where he was going anymore as long as it was away from those penguins! All the hallways looked exactly the same anyway; he was already lost. Explosions mixed with cries of "Dood!" sounded behind him as the penguins ran into walls and each other. He dived through the first open doorway he noticed and prayed it had been enough to throw off his pursuers.

"So you finally made it Sly Cooper," the Vixen purred as she walked sensually toward him. She personified her saunter with a sexy sashay of her hips, shifting hypnotically with every step. "I was wondering how long--what are you doing?"

The Vixen's surprised cry came from the fact that Sly had charged her and now had his entire body wrapped around her. "Thank goodness you're not another one of those penguins!" he said over and over, relieved tears falling from his eyes, matting down the fur of his cheeks.

The Vixen could feel herself blushing and knew it was visible even through the indigo makeup she wore on her cheeks. She had wanted to be in this position from the moment she met him if she were being completely honest with herself. She desired nothing more than to simply melt in his embrace and return it. But she knew it was neither the time nor place for this; they had business to settle first. "What is the matter with you?" she asked, wincing when her voice trembled slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"Those penguins are after me!" Sly insisted. "They're trying to kill me!"

"Penguins?" The Vixen wondered, arching an eyebrow under her mask. "Oh, you mean my Prinnies."

"DOOD!"

Sly jumped away with a yelp, looking about the room as his fur stood up in fright. Those penguins, Prinnies as the Vixen called them, formed a loose ring around them blocking off all avenues of escape. "So this is how you're going to kill me, is it?" he accused in a low, dark voice.

The Vixen laughed loudly, the sound shocking Sly into looking back at her. "Did you really think I would stoop so low Cooper?" she taunted. "Come now, all I ever wanted was to test myself against you. How could I do that if I were not the one to kill you?"

"Yeah well I think exploding penguins would do the trick rather nicely!"

"Exploding demonic penguins," the Vixen corrected with a smirk. "Let me tell you a little story about what exactly was going on at this 'weather base' as they referred to it." She brushed her paws down over her torso, smoothing her suit of wrinkles caused by his previous clinging embrace.

She mock-cleared her throat then grinned again. Her Cheshire expression displayed her pearly incisors to maximum effect. "As you may or may not know, this 'used' to be a military base. But the simple fact is, it never stopped. The military just changed its designation when watchdog groups started looking at it too closely. They conducted all kinds of horrific experiments, both scientific and magical. And that was where they made their final mistake.

"You see Ringtail, the fools managed to open up a portal to a different dimension, a dimension called 'The Netherworld.' The portal wasn't open very long, but it was long enough for a single Prinny to slip through to our world."

"A single Prinny?" Sly interrupted. "Seems like I've seen a lot more than one today."

The Vixen reached over and flicked his nose gently. "I'm getting to that. They were amazed by what they had found and immediately set to trying to figure out what he was and what made him tick. Because of the Prinny's usually docile nature, they got lax in their security and careless in their precautions.

"One guard had apparently taken a liking to taunting the Prinny, trying to get a reaction out of him. He got one all right, a very explosive one. By the time the others had heard the commotion and arrived at the cell, the guard was dead and the Prinny was nothing more than dust covering the walls. The entire base immediately went into lockdown mode as they tried to figure out what had happened. They left the guard's body in the cell having no other place to really deal with it.

"Imagine their surprise the next day when they approached the cell they didn't find one body, they found two live Prinnies." This piece of news shocked Sly so badly that he fell right on his backside. "I see you already put the pieces together," she said with a smirk. "Prinnies just love to blow themselves up because they're just fine the next day. And anyone they kill by blowing them up revives as a Prinny as well. I don't think I need to explain what happened to everyone else in the base."

"You were going to turn me into a Prinny?" Sly demanded, baring his teeth.

"Didn't I already tell you they weren't going to kill you?" the Vixen snarled, offended that he wasn't listening to her. "Besides, they can't kill you anymore than they can blow this base up."

Sly cocked his head to the side as he stood up. He noticed that he was spending a lot of time on his rear end; not the position he wanted to be in. "I don't understand," he admitted.

"I didn't at first either. Everything I've told you to this point I learned from the journals the last surviving scientist wrote before he too was turned. When I first found this place, they rushed me too and I got pretty singed. But even though it hurt worse than anything I ever felt, I was never really damaged from the impact. From being hurled into a wall or doing a header across the floor? Of course. But never the actual explosion.

"Eventually I managed to trap one and started to interrogate it. To my surprise, the Prinny I'd captured was intelligent and answered all my questions easily. It turns out that things are different in their home dimension; there they can kill anything. But here, the energy they release can only kill those that are evil, like the greedy, selfish bastards that brought him here in the first place. If they had been able to kill you, then you truly were the dark criminal that Interpol makes you out to be and I would have been sorely disappointed. And because the energy is demonic in nature, it can't affect inanimate or inorganic objects--"

"--Which is the reason this base is still standing," Sly finished, catching on. "But why would he tell you this?"

The smirk on the Vixen's face widened into a pointed smile. "Apparently I remind him of his boss back home, some girl named Etna I think. Besides, their brains are hard wired to listen to any forceful female voice. Too bad the scientists that used to run this place were all chauvinists as well. And since the original one now follows me, they all do. Isn't that right?" she barked at the Prinnies.

"Yes Dood!" the Prinnies all chorused, snapping to attention and saluting her.

The Vixen nodded and pointed to the door. "All of you get out of here now! Back to your rooms!" The Prinnies saluted again and ran from the room. One of them moved a little too slowly for the Vixen's liking so she walked up behind him and kicked him out of the door with a boot to his tail. Sly dove backward and covered up to protect himself from the expected blast. But all was quiet. "Huh?" he asked, looking around in confusion.

The Vixen smiled as she approached him, twirling her white and platinum cane casually. "Oh, did I forget to mention they only explode when they hit something, not when something hits them?"

Sly rolled his eyes and started to circle the Vixen cautiously, looking for an opening. "So this is it huh?" he asked as he slid a step to his left.

"This is it," the Vixen confirmed, matching Sly's moves with her own. "Everything before now has been nothing but foreplay. We've been at this game for quite some time now Sly Cooper; it's time for the real fun to begin."

"But how do I know this isn't another trick? For all I know you're just another lackey playing dressup."

The Vixen vaulted up to a thin railing that circled the room and slid along it expertly. "Do you think I'd let any of my lackeys learn these moves?" she taunted, tossing her cap at Sly and making it explode before it touched the ground. "Don't worry Ringtail, I'm your one and only. And it's time to see just how well I measure up against you." She used the hilt of her cane to nudge her mask, shifting it ever-so-slightly so that it conformed better to her smooth feminine visage.

"So come on then," Sly beckoned. "Let's see just what you got." He leapt for her as she leapt for him, both their canes flashing as they brought them together in simultaneous overhead swings.

TO BE CONTINUED


	9. Alone at Last

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Chapter 9: Alone at Last 

Their canes slammed together with tremendous force; their eyes locked, neither one giving an inch. "Where is Carmelita?" Sly demanded, testing his strength against hers. "This is supposed to be about you and me, right? Well you got me here so let her go!"

The Vixen smirked and shoved Sly away casually having a clear strength advantage over the slender raccoon. "Oh please Ringtail," she scoffed, "I'm not stupid. If I tell you where she is, you'll take off, not even caring about me anymore. A lady doesn't like to feel rejected, so I hope you can understand why I wouldn't want to divulge such information.

"Besides," she continued, "as long as I have Carmelita in my power you won't try anything sneaky. Everyone knows that the best way to trap Sly Cooper is to threaten Carmelita. Clockwerk knew it, Arpeggio knew it, even Neyla knew it. I just have to wonder why. What is it about her?"

"None of your business," Sly growled, taking a wild swing at the Vixen who nimbly backflipped away. He stood there with his eyes narrowed, twirling his cane in one hand. "And if you ask me, you're no lady."

She offered him a hurt expression which melted into a playful grin. "But it is my business," the Vixen protested, jumping in with a kick that made Sly dive to the side. She pivoted around to face him again, and twirled her cane, mimicking his action from just a moment ago. "Don't you know by now? Everything about you is my business."

Sly let a snarl curl his lips but kept his cool. She was trying to get him off balance, trying to create a weakness to exploit. But even as he realized that she struck, aiming a spin kick at his head. Sly rolled under the gracefully extended leg, bringing his cane up in an uppercut. The Vixen jumped up and landed on the hook of his cane. She blew him a quick kiss then launched herself up to the railing that circled the room.

Sly vaulted up to the railing and quickly Rail Walked his way toward the devious Vixen. She nodded her head, accepting his challenge, and Rail Walked right back at him. They struck at each other against; the clash of their metal hooks creating a barrage of white-hot sparks. But once again, the Vixen's strength advantage was clear as she pulled Sly from the railing and threw him down to the ground.

He winced as his back impacted the concrete, the breath rushing from his body in a pained sigh. His vision swam for a second, but he was still able to recognize what the Vixen was doing. She leapt from the railing with a perfect somersault and dove down at him, thrusting her cane out in front of her. It spun about in her paw as she descended, one of the first moves Sly had ever learned from the Thievius Raccoonus.

Sly reached up to block the blow with his own cane, stopping her momentum cold and supporting her weight for a precious few seconds. He brought up his feet to kick her away and kipped up all in the same move, landing in a half-crouch but staying like that for only a second.

The Vixen landed on her feet and spun around to face Sly. But Sly was already upon her, rolling into her legs while electricity crackled all around him. She cried out in pain as the electricity coursed up her legs and through her body, throwing her back into the wall. She sat up and roughly tilted her head to the side, cracking the joints in her neck. "Nicely done Cooper," she growled, reaching up to adjust her mask which had fallen slightly askew. "But what's good for me is just as good for you."

She dove forward into a Electric Roll herself, but Sly was ready for it and just jumped over her. At least, that was the plan. But the Vixen had only rolled forward a little before standing back up. Sly watched in horror as she tapped her cane against the ground, lighting up her hook with the same electricity. He desperately called on his Thief Reflexes to give himself more time to figure out what to do, but the Vixen had the same idea, using the same technique to keep her speed in sync with Sly's.

Sly braced himself as best he could, covering his face with his arms and bringing his legs up to protect his body. But that wasn't the Vixen's target, and he didn't realize it until it was too late. She swung her cane up in an arc that brought the hook into contact with the tender flesh right under the base of his tail. Sly yelped as the electricity made him feel like he was being spanked, repeatedly, before he was driven into the wall himself. "Why you little..." he growled in reply to her laughter.

"Little?" she asked incredulously. "Do I really look like I'm little in any way?" she added, spinning around to give him yet another good view of curvaceous body.

Sly felt his temper slipping so he decided to reverse the situation. "I guess not," he said as seriously as he could, waiting a few seconds before taking on, "especially around your waist."

Time seemed to freeze as his words worked their way through her brain. Her eyes widened and her jaw tightened. The fur on her tail bristled and her ears laid back flat against her mask. "WHAT??!" she screeched, baring her teeth and looking angrier than he had ever seen her. "ARE YOU CALLING ME FAT?" And when he shrugged as if saying, "Well, yeah," she roared loud enough to make the walls shake.

Sly got what he wanted: the Vixen was in a blind rage. But he had underestimated her capacity for anger. She roared and attacked him wildly, each swing of her cane or foot aimed to decapitate him. Each blow by itself was easy to avoid, but considering the fact that she was striking at him at a rate of more than once a second, he was hard pressed to keep his head attached to his shoulders.

But as usually happens with a crazed fighter, she eventually left an opening. Sly ducked one of her more vicious swings only to hear it clang off the wall. He saw the shock reverberate up her arms and she stepped back, stunned for just one second. He lunged forward, burying his cane into her midsection and pushing her away.

The Vixen tumbled backwards, tail over head, until she landed hard against the wall. She picked herself up shakily and prepared to attack again until she felt something under her hand. The look of anger left her face so suddenly that Sly was surprised by the change. "Hey Ringtail," she said, a sensuous smile spreading across her lips as her fingers curled around a hidden lever. "We seem to be well-matched in our skills, equals if you will. So why don't we raise the ante a little?"

Sly ran toward her as she talked, trying to stop her from pulling the lever. But she had already tripped the switch and easily avoided his charge. It took Sly only a half second to decide to follow her, but that slight delay saved his life. Pointy metallic poles shot straight up out of the floor as long, curved spikes curled out from the walls. "This is one notch?" he asked, tapping his cane against one of the spikes and finding it solid.

The Vixen grinned down at him from where she balanced atop of one of the higher spikes. "What are you waiting for Cooper?" she asked, jumping toward one of the nearby spikes and twirling around in mid-air to land on it safely with a Rioichi Cooper Ninja Spire Jump. "You're not scared, are you?"

"You know better," Sly stated calmly, not rising to the bait. He used his cane as a pole vault, leaping atop a spike and striking out at her as he landed.

She turned his strike aside with her own cane and jumped away, hopping lightly from spike to spike until she was on the other side of the room. "Now that you're up here, I think we should make things a little more interesting," she said, tapping her cane against a section of ceiling colored differently from the rest.

Before Sly could ask what she meant by that, the spike he was standing on suddenly retracted, forcing him to jump awkwardly to one nearby. He nearly misjudged the landing but salvaged it at the last minute. He had no time to relax, no matter how much he wanted to, as the rest of the spikes retracted and extended with a random pattern, making him stay constantly in motion. It was all he could do to stay off the floor.

The Vixen had no such trouble, however, somehow knowing which spikes would move and when. She jumped around for a bit, teasing an attack now and again, trying to get him to focus more and more on her than on his footwork. It worked, but not quite how she had intended.

With Sly's attention increasingly on her, he decided to go on the attack. He waited for her next jump, leaving the spike dancing to his feet and his instincts. When the expected jump happened, Sly hooked his cane around the spike she intended to land on. He couldn't budge it much, but it was enough to disrupt her timing.

"Whoa!" she said windmilling her arms to try and catch her balance. Sly brought his cane up to try and hook her foot, but she fell back before he could.

She grabbed hold of the nearest spike, wincing as the tip pierced her glove but fell just shy of drawing blood. She swung her body around it and planted her feet against it, springing away to land atop another spike. "You almost had me there Cooper," she allowed with a mocking bow. "But almost doesn't count, as you're about to find out."

Her meaning registered an instant too late. Sly tried to jump to another spike, but the one he was crouching on had already started to lower. Off balance, he tried to gather himself for another jump but had to bring up his cane instead as the Vixen attacked.

The Vixen swung her cane up in an arc, hooking his and ripping it from his grasp before sending it flying toward one of the walls. Sly made a desperate grab for it but suffered a roundhouse kick to his ribs that launched him toward the opposite wall.

Sly's body screamed in pain as he slid to the ground. It was so hard to stay conscious, much less even think about moving. Dark spots swam in his vision as he fought to stay awake, calling up every ounce of willpower he could muster. But even that wouldn't have been enough if the Vixen had not started laughing at him, causing anger and adrenaline to pump their way through his veins.

"This was too easy," she crowed, striking a different part of the ceiling to make all the spikes retract. "I thought you were supposed to be the best Cooper?" she taunted, riding the spike she waited on all the way to the ground.

Sly refused to even dignify her question with an answer, choosing instead to turn his face away so he didn't have to watch her approach. The Vixen thought he was hiding his face in shame so she continued to berate him as she walked toward him, her smile getting wider and wider as she got closer and closer. "You should never have underestimated me," she said, nudging him with the toe of her boot.

Quicker than she could see, Sly grabbed hold of her foot and pulled. But once again, the Vixen anticipated this move and easily flipped backward to land safely on her feet. What she did not expect, however, was the uppercut that Sly landed on her chin, staggering her back. "What the hell was--" she began until the breath was forced from her body by a one-two punch to the solar plexus followed by a short hook to the ribs.

She fell back, desperately trying to cover up from Sly's attack. In all the years she had watched Sly, through all his trials and tribulations, he had never resorted to hand-to-hand fighting. She was no slouch at it herself, but he had taken her completely by surprise. The best she could do was cover up and hope he made a mistake.

But Sly gave no quarter, pursuing her while striking methodically at every point she left unprotected. Gasps and moans of pain left her lips, and he was sure he had felt one of her ribs give under his assault. It made him sick to his stomach to know that he was inflicting this damage on a woman, but he would do whatever it took to save Carmelita.

The Vixen shoved at Sly with her cane, trying to push him away, blinded by fear and pain. Sly calmly ducked under the attempted push and grasped her cane with both hands. One quick turn was all it took to pull the cane from her hands and sweep her legs out with the hook, sending her sprawling to the floor. "It's over!" Sly declared, resting the platinum hook against the white fur of her throat. "You've lost! Now where is Carmelita!"

"It's not over!" the Vixen snarled defiantly. She pulled a remote control from her pocket and pressed the button. The sound of metal grinding against metal filled their ears as a hidden hallway revealed itself. Sly risked turning to look and gasped. Carmelita sat limply in the room at the end of the hallway, manacled to the rigid metal frame of a well-built chair. Blood covered the right side of her face and muzzle, and she jerked and twitched feebly though she was unconscious. But more importantly, the room was slowly filling with green gas that looked just like what Clockwerk had tried to kill them with in the Krakarov Volcano.

Sly's heart pounded in his chest at the sight of Carmelita looking so vulnerable. She was such a strong woman that seeing her like this made his heart break. He was so transfixed by what he saw that he failed to notice the Vixen pushing another button on the remote she held, one that caused the hallway to begin closing in on itself, the ceiling slowly moving down toward the floor. "You've got a choice Cooper," she said, drawing his attention back to her. "Either deal with me or save her; you can't do both. Which is it going to be Ringtail?"

Sly grabbed her by her throat and pulled her face to his. "It's not even a question," he said in a chilling voice made even more so because of the calm way he said it. He shoved her down hard, making the back of her head smack against the floor, and ran to the shrinking hallway, veering aside briefly to snatch his cane from where it lay on the floor.

As he ducked into the hallway, it was already nearly too small to stand upright in. He wedged both canes against the walls to stop the ceiling's descent. It worked, but the canes were already started to bend. He couldn't run in this small space, but he had more than enough room for a Raccoon Roll.

The ceiling slammed down the rest of the way just as he cleared the hallway, missing his head by less than an inch. He wanted to say something to Carmelita to assure himself that she was all right, but he had to hold his breath against the gas that was filling the sealed chamber at an even more rapid rate. He ran to her instead, reaching his hand out to nudge her shoulder to try and rouse her.

But his hand passed through her shoulder, causing "Carmelita" to flicker like a poor quality recording before fading out entirely. "What?" he exclaimed in surprise, forgetting he was supposed to be holding his breath.

"You really are a fool!"

Sly spun around at hearing the Vixen's voice, looking for her. With his back to the chair he didn't see the manacles snake out at him like they were living things, attached to the chair by steel cables. Before he could react, the manacles clamped down on his wrists and ankles and pulled him back into the chair. His already aching body was too weak to even make the attempt to break free; all he could do was sit there as the gas level slowly rose, taking as few breaths as possible.

An ever so slight creaking made him look up. The Vixen stood on a platform high above him, leaning casually over a railing and smirking at him, both of their canes in her grasp. It annoyed him to no end that she already seemed to have recovered from the pummelling he'd handed out. This was further evidenced by how she easily leapt over the railing and landed lightly in front of him. "I finally have you where I've always wanted you Cooper," she purred seductively.

Sly smirked back at her. The slight hitch in her voice told him that she wasn't as uninjured as she was pretending to be. Small consolation, but if that was the last thing he would know then he would be smiling all the way to his grave.

That's when it occurred to him that unlike him, she didn't seem at all concerned by the gas filling the chamber. "So what? We're going to die here together?" he asked in a bored voice. "A tragic yet romantic scene for sure. That's what you've been leading up to all this time? Or is it because you know you can't have me you don't want anyone else to?"

The Vixen laughed throatily, her husky voice setting fire to his senses over the objections of his mind. "Have you been reading too many bad romance novels?" she asked, her indigo lips quirked slightly to the side. "I never took you for the type really."

She sashayed over to one of the gas jets and breathed in a deep lungful of the green fumes. "It's wonderful what colored dry ice can make someone think," she said, her exhalation even tinged green.

"Dry ice?" Sly couldn't believe it. Even here at the end, she had pulled one final trick on him.

"I've fooled you again Cooper," she gloated, deactivating the gas jets. "Only this one is the most satisfying of them all."

A sudden surge of anger made Sly throw himself against his restraints, trying to break free despite the pain that wracked his body. "Where is Carmelita?" he howled.

"Calm yourself Ringtail," she ordered softly, a frown now marring her beauty. "Your precious Carmelita is alive and well. In this very building in fact. But if you ever want to see her again," she continued, her manner and demeanor now completely serious, "you're going to have to answer me a question."

"What do you want to know?" he asked guardedly.

The Vixen started pacing back and forth, but her natural grace made it look almost like she was dancing among the remaining vapors. "I don't understand you Cooper," she said after a moment. "Here I am, doing everything I can to get your attention, and yet it mostly goes for naught. I've proved myself to be your equal, at least. I've helped you, hunted you, and been hunted by you. We've kissed, and almost kissed at least twice, yet you lose all focus on me whenever she shows up," she spat the last three words as if the were the foulest tasting substance in the world.

"Well what do you expect?" he returned hotly. "I've known you for how long? And yes I am attracted to you, and yes you are my equal," he admitted even though it pained him to do so, "but so what? The most I could have with you is a fling. Carmelita is more than just that to me."

The Vixen didn't seem upset by his words, looking instead like she had expected them. "So what is then about her Cooper?" she asked, crouching down to be eye-level with him with only the barest of winces. "What is it about her that draws you so much to her? That is what I want to know."

When Sly showed no interest in answering, the Vixen spoke again. "I'll make you a deal. Give me one good reason, just one, why she is so important to you and I'll let you both go. No strings attached, you'll never see me again."

"How can I trust you now after all the tricks you pulled?" Sly asked wearily.

"What have you got to lose?"

"What reason could I possibly give?" he returned bitterly. "There's nothing I could say that would satisfy you."

"How about trying the truth?" she asked earnestly. "Not just to me, but to yourself. I want you to tell me your single most important reason why Carmelita is so important to you."

Sly could feel her eyes boring into his despite the mask she wore. Something inside him snapped, something that had been hiding itself from even his knowledge. "You want the truth?" he inquired gently, his demeanor relaxed and collected as he looked up at her. "Fine, here's the truth. I love her. I love Carmelita Montoya Fox!"

He felt strangely lighter after shouting that, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. "I love her," he repeated in a soft whisper, absorbing the truth in them.

"That's all I wanted to hear," the Vixen said, standing up and starting to walk away.

"You said you'd let us go!" Sly yelled, tugging against his binds.

She turned back toward him. "So I did," she said, laying the canes she held on the ground. "And I didn't lie. But before I let you go, you deserve to learn one thing about me. Since you told me your biggest secret, I shall tell you mine: my identity."

Sly's eyes widened in shock as she slipped her gloved thumbs under her mask and started to lift it up and off. In just a second he would see the features behind it for the first time and know the woman who had done all this to him. The mask inched up slowly until she pulled it free, finally revealing herself to be...

TO BE CONCLUDED


	10. The Final Revelations

"The Vixen"  
Author: Robert Brown 

Disclaimer: This story uses characters created and copyrighted by Sucker Punch, Inc. (except where noted, in which case they were created and copyrighted by me or by another and I have permission to use them). The author hereby gives permission for this story to be downloaded and/or printed at 1 copy per user as long as (1) no changes to the story are made without my express written(not e-mailed) permission and (2) no attempt is made to profit from this story. If either or both rules are violated, it will be considered a violation of copyright law.

Chapter 10: The Final Revelations

Sly could only stare in shock as the Vixen lifted off her mask and let it fall behind her. The fur of her face was as white as he'd imagined it to be and her hair was as short and as blonde as he'd caught glimpses of in their past encounters, surrounding her head in short, frizzy curls. He could honestly say he had never met anyone that matched her description before.

But her eyes... Her eyes were a completely different matter. If he could recognize nothing else, he would never mistake those warm brown eyes anywhere. The inner strength, the playful glint, the slightly challenging stare they gaze as they gazed intently into his own eyes. Those eyes could only belong to one individual.

"CARMELITA?"

"You got it, Ringtail," Carmelita confirmed with a saucy wink. "In the flesh, if not exactly in the fur."

"But...how...when...who?" Sly spluttered incoherently. To put it bluntly, his mind was blown. He couldn't form a single rational thought as Carmelita just stood there, smirking at him. He jaw felt like it had dropped to somewhere around the floor, but he couldn't even bring himself to close his mouth.

Carmelita laughed at the dumbfounded expression on Sly's face. "I can't believe I made you speechless again!" she said, a warm smile touching her lips. "I'm really getting good at that."

Sly finally regained control of his lower jaw at Carmelita's teasing, but he still couldn't quite make any comprehensible sentences with it. After a few attempts to articulate his disbelief, he settled for just getting anything to come out of his mouth. "What the hell did you do to your hair?"

Carmelita blinked in surprise. "Of all the questions I expected you to ask," she said slowly, "that wasn't even close to being on the list. But why am I even surprised?" she added exasperatedly. "This whole time you've been doing everything but what I expected you to!"

"What are you talking about?" Sly demanded.

"Do you know how much planning went into this?" she demanded, her tail lashing the air behind her. "Every single situation had to be planned for, and we thought we had it all figured out. Then you had to try and screw things up by changing your routine. That one act almost ruined everything!"

Sly was still finding it hard to accept the fact that Carmelita was the Vixen, despite what he was seeing and hearing. There were just too many things that made no sense and even more unanswered questions. "But why all this?" he asked. "Was this all just some elaborate setup to capture me?"

"If I had wanted to capture you Cooper, I had more than one opportunity without dragging you all the way out here. This wasn't professional Cooper, this was personal.

"After our chopper ride together," she continued, "I was called into my chief's office. I was sure I was going to be chewed out for letting you escape again. And while that did happen, I was also told I would be taken off your case and replaced with Chemp."

"Chemp?" Sly asked. "Isn't he the one that shoots first and doesn't even bother asking questions?"

Carmelita nodded, and Sly could see real fear in her eyes at the thought of it. "I couldn't let that happen. The chief gave me one chance to change his mind, but only if I could give him the truest reason I could why it shouldn't happen. And after thinking about it, there was only reason I could give. I love you Sly Cooper."

Just when Sly thought he couldn't be more shocked, that announcement floored him. "You love me?" he asked in a small voice, afraid he hadn't heard her right.

"I love you," she repeated, reaching out and touching his cheek fondly. "And I couldn't let anything happen to you. You were...are...too important to me Ringtail."

Sly smiled genuinely at her confession, touched by the warmth in her eyes and in her voice. He had no doubt that she was telling the truth, but a few things still nagged at him. "So why go through all this?" he wondered. "Why not just come to me and tell me how you felt?"

Carmelita tilted her head, a few of her blonde ringlets falling down over her forehead. "Think about it Sly. If I had just popped up out of nowhere and declared my undying love for you, what would you have thought?"

"That you'd finally fallen for my irresistible charm."

She scowled at him and smacked him in the back of my head. "Be serious for a minute, would you?"

Sly wished he could rub the back of his head, but that was a little hard to do seeing as he was still manacled to the chair. "I guess I would've been suspicious," he admitted. "And if not me, Bentley definitely would have been. He wouldn't have trusted you in the least and would've tried to get me to send you away."

"And that's why I couldn't do it," Carmelita sighed, sitting down on his lap sideways and letting her legs dangle over his arm and the arm of the chair. "The mistrust between you guys and me, though understandable, would've driven a wedge between us. As hard as I would've had to try and prove myself, resentment and bad feelings would've sprouted and choked the life out of our love. We would've grown bitter and apart; any chance we had of being together and staying together would've been wrecked."

As much as it pained him to, Sly had to acknowledge the truth in her words. All his thoughts about getting together with Carmelita had been hopelessly romanticized. Now the bare facts were laid down in front of him, the way they were going it would not have ever worked out. "That answers that question," he said, looking up into her face. It still disconcerted him to no end to see her fur white and her hair short and blonde, so he focused on her eyes instead. "But you still haven't explained why you had to go through all this."

"I was told by someone who made a lot of sense that the only way I could fully accept you was to live life in your shoes for a little while. To see what drew you to being a thief, what made you keep going. I'll admit, being the Vixen was exhilarating. Outwitting other criminals, stealing from them, leaving all the loot behind except for one trophy piece... I felt alive in a way I hadn't since I first joined the force.

"But it was more than that," she continued, ignoring Sly's dumbfounded expression. "What I said as the Vixen was true; I did need to prove myself to be your equal. But I also needed to see how you would react. Did I mean as much to you as you said I did, or was I just a challenge to you? Would you forget about me and fall for the Vixen? I had to see if you truly did love me before I let you know that I love you."

"Couldn't you have just asked me?" Sly demanded though his voice held no anger behind it.

"And risk falling for your 'irresistible charm'?" she returned playfully. "No Sly, if I had outright asked you about it, you would've turned it into a situation to flirt with me and I wouldn't have gotten a serious answer out of you. You know you would have," she said a little forcefully as he opened his mouth to protest. "This was too important to me to let it be trivialized.

"And I got my answer. Not just here, but before when we were out on jobs. Every time things started to get a little heated between us, and let me say here that you are one fantastic kisser, it always stopped the moment 'Carmelita' showed up. I may have acted jealous and angry, but inside I was almost singing with happiness and relief."

"How did you pull that off anyway? I know I saw you and...well, you together on more than one occasion. You even kidnapped...you...am I making any sense here?"

Carmelita laughed again, a warm and happy sound. "Sly," she said when she noticed his ears flatten back at her laughter, "I'm not laughing at you, not really. It's just that I've never seen you so confused before and you just look so cute." Sly ducked his head a little, trying to hide his blush. But Carmelita wouldn't let him, placing a finger under his chin and lifting his face to hers. "Don't hide from me Sly," she whispered. "We've done enough hiding from each other."

Sly nodded slightly. "So how did you do it?" he asked. "How could you be in two places at the same time?"

"Who says I was?" she asked teasingly, pulling the remote from her pocket and opening the hallway. As soon as it was open a very familiar form stood within the shadows. If Carmelita wasn't sitting on his lap, he'd swear that she was in the hall, even if that one was wearing a uniform typical of an Interpol Constable. "I'd like you to meet Constable Jennifer Benton," Carmelita said with a flourish of her arm. "She's the newest recruit of Interpol."

"How ya doing sugar?" Jennifer asked as she stepped out into the light, her soft voice heavily accented with an American southern twang.

Sly's face scrunched up as she walked toward him. Now that he could see her, the differences between them were obvious. Glaringly obvious in fact. Even if you discounted the fact that she sounded nothing like Carmelita there was no way this Constable Benton could be mistaken for her. Her muzzle was a few inches shorter, her fur color was at least three shades closer to red, and her eyes were a bright blue. But perhaps the biggest difference was her hair; it was short, spiky, and neon blue. "This is not who I saw," he said confidently, starting to sound a bit angry.

Carmelita and Jennifer exchanged a knowing glance which only made Sly angrier. Jennifer slung a small duffel bag off her shoulder that Sly hadn't noticed and opened it up. She pulled out Carmelita's badge choker and attached it around her neck. While Sly could admit it helped with the look slightly, he still didn't see the big deal. The next thing she drew from the bag, however, surprised him to no end.

Jennifer smirked as she settled the mass of blue-black hair on her head. She took a moment to fix it so that the braid fell down her back just right and then fixed Sly with a harsh stare. "What are you staring at Ringtail?" she demanded in a perfect imitation of Carmelita's voice.

"Voice changer hidden in the choker," Carmelita explained before Sly could ask. "Quite the effective bit of technology if I do say so myself. I almost used it myself, but I've lived in Paris long enough to pick up a French accent."

"That wasn't what I was going to ask," Sly said slowly, "though I am interested on how you got your hands on that kind of technology. "I was going to ask you about that wig she's wearing. It's...not really a wig, is it?"

Carmelita touched her short hair self-consciously. "I knew a regular wig wouldn't fool you," she said, a wistful tinge to her voice. "Besides," she added in a pale attempt at being lighthearted, "there was no way I'd be able to conceal all that under the Vixen's mask. So I had it all shaved off and fashioned into a wig for Constable Benton to wear."

"It's Jennifer," the constable said in her own voice; she'd removed Carmelita's choker without Sly realizing it. "I've told you that before. Now go and change. I'm sure you'll feel better once you're in your normal clothes."

Carmelita caught the duffel bag that Jennifer tossed to her with one hand and got up to her feet, wincing slightly as she did so. "Is the gunk in here too?" she asked.

"Of course," Jennifer returned brightly. "But you better not let them hear you call it 'gunk' again. You know what happened last time."

Carmelita rolled her eyes but said nothing as she hooked her cane onto a small metal ring on the wall. "You two keep each other company," she said, using the cane to spring back up to the wooden platform she had used to enter the room. She landed a little awkwardly and grabbed at her ribs. "Are there any bandages in here?" she called down. "I think he busted one of my ribs."

Sly felt his blood turn to ice as he remembered the satisfaction of feeling her rib break under his fist. "Carmelita," he began in a strained and choked voice.

"Save it Sly," she said, pretty confident that she knew what was coming. "I don't blame you for this. If anything, I'm glad it happened. After all, you wouldn't have done it if you knew it was me. That just shows how completely I had you fooled! Now don't go anywhere!"

"Like I can," Sly grumbled as Carmelita ducked out a door he could not see. He still wasn't too convinced with Carmelita's words, but he had the feeling she'd beat him up if he dwelled on it. With nothing else to do, he turned his attention to the only other occupant in the room. "Hey, do you think you can let me out of this chair?"

Jennifer shook her head, pulling Carmelita's hair off her head and running her fingers through her own neon blue spikes. "No can do. Carmelita gave specific instructions not to let you out of that chair until she said so. Something about wanting you to stay and hear everything."

Sly sighed irritably. He hated being forced to sit and stay in one place. "So what else did you do?" he asked, pulling at the restraints again. "Even with the voice and the hair, I think I'd be able to tell you weren't Carmelita."

"I don't doubt it," Jennifer agreed, leaning casually against the wall. "Which is why I made sure you never got a good look at me. You only saw me three times before today: once I had a floodlight behind me and the other two were from at least a hundred feet away. You're good Cooper, but not that good. Maybe under different circumstances you might've been able to tell the difference. But you expected to see Carmelita, so that's what you saw."

"I guess," Sly said petulantly, like a small child who'd been told he could not fly no matter how hard he flapped his arms. "And the voice changer? Where did that come from?"

Jennifer dropped into a squat, her back against the wall. "From two of the most brilliant people you have ever met," she answered mysteriously.

Sly had been shocked so many times today that all these surprises were starting to lose their effect on him. "So I know these two, huh? And I suppose they're here as well?"

"Of course hun! You don't think we could have this whole big reveal party without inviting everyone who made it possible, do you?"

"What have you been telling him?" Carmelita asked as she jumped down from the platform to land between them, still favoring her injured side. "You better not have given anything away."

"Well if you had taken any longer to get back here I just might have," Jennifer retorted.

Carmelita rolled her eyes and spun around to face Sly. She was once more attired in her usual outfit, though it seemed to fit her a little bit more snugly than Sly remembered. He noticed that she had her ribs taped up and remorse shot through his soul again. He forced himself to move on though, for his sake as much as hers.

Her fur was back to its normal coloring as well, though a stray streak of white remained where she had missed it. Her hair had returned to its normal blue-black color, though it still remained in short ringlets. The only thing that remained from her alternate look was the indigo lipstick. And Sly had to admit, no matter how good she looked dressed as the Vixen, he was really happy to have the old Carmelita back.

Carmelita noticed his eyes traveling up and down her body, taking in her "new" look. "Not that I mind," she said after clearing her throat to get his attention back on her face and not on her slightly enhanced assets, "but do you just want to stare all day or get all your questions answered?"

"Tough choice," Sly quipped automatically.

Jennifer giggled as Carmelita crossed her arms in exasperation. "He is smooth," the constable said, waggling her eyebrows at Sly.

"Don't get used to it," Carmelita snapped.

"Well, before you interrupted us I was about to find out who made that voice changer," Sly said, feeling more at ease now that he had Carmelita riled up a bit. "But now that you're here, what did you use to dye your fur? I know you can't use anything like hair dye, and no matter how good it is some of it should've rubbed off on me when we fought."

"That was a problem," Carmelita admitted. "But the same two who made the voice changer came up with something that bonded to my fur so well it won't come off even if I get dunked in a vat of soapy water and scrubbed until my fur frizzed. That's why I need the gunk to get it off."

"What did I tell you about calling my invention that?" a rough voice growled from the hallway, one that sounded very familiar to Sly.

Carmelita flinched a little at the growl and tried to hide her reaction to the voice. "It's only half yours," she insisted even though it sounded lame to her own ears.

"Like that matters?" the owner of the voice asked as she stepped into the room.

Sly couldn't work up the energy to be too shocked when he saw who it was. Even though she was dressed in a grey blouse and black trousers, he knew her immediately. "Luka, right?" he asked, glaring at the arctic wolf.

Luka straightened up to her full height at being addressed in such a casual manner by Sly. "That's Special Detective Luka Destler to you Cooper," she said, pulling an Interpol badge from her pocket. "Head of the new tech department. You're already intimately familiar with one of my greatest inventions."

"And that would be?" Sly asked, arching his eyebrow. Luka whipped a black shock pistol out of a hidden holster and launched a shockbolt over his head. Despite where she aimed, Sly still ducked as much as he could. "You're the one who created the shock pistol?" At Luka's sharp nod, Sly fixed her with a calm gaze. "Then you're the one responsible for all my singed sweaters and caps. You'll be getting my dry cleaning bill."

The unexpected comment made Luka stumble slightly and the others in the room giggle. "Is he always like this?" she asked, more than a touch perturbed.

"Yes," Carmelita answered quickly and emphatically.

"Come now Luka," another feminine voice purred from the hallway. "I've only known him for a little longer than you and even I know he's always like that."

Sly's eyes swung back over to the hallway just as a familiar calico cat, dressed in a white blouse with a conservative grey skirt and a grey blazer, walked into the room. "It only makes sense," he muttered more to himself than anything else. "If Luka is part of Interpol, then I guess you had to be too."

"Chief Inspector Maia Genía," Maia said, showing Sly her badge. "Head of Interpol's North American HQ."

"Chief Inspector?" So Sly was wrong, he still could be surprised. "You can't be; it's not possible."

Maia's blue eyes hardened into little shards of ice, her gaze sharp and cutting. "And why is that Cooper?" she demanded, her voice dripping with venom. "Because I'm a woman? I thought you were better than that."

If Sly could've raised his arms defensively, he would have. "I'm not saying that at all," he protested. "It's just that after our tango together I had Bentley look up information on you to see if you were telling the truth about being a six-time champion. It said you'd disappeared from sight when they stripped the trophy from you. It's nothing about you being a woman, really! It's just that there's no way Bentley could make such a mistake."

Maia had the grace to look ashamed after Sly's explanation. But just as she was about to apologize, a soft giggle interrupted her. "Well, there is a really good explanation for that," Jennifer said, standing up and stretching her legs out. "Remember how I said the voice changer was the product of two people you know?"

"Yeah but--" Sly stopped as what Constable Benton was inferring worked its way through his brain. "No," he murmured, shaking his head. "No no no no NO!"

"It's true Sly," Bentley said as he wheeled himself into the room, Murray following close behind. "We were in on it as well."

Watching his two teammates, his two best friends, two of only three people in this world that he would gladly lay his life down for, be there now siding with the cops, Sly could feel his soul break. "Why?" he croaked out past the sharp pain of betrayal that gripped his heart and closed off his throat.

"Now don't jump to conclusions Sly," Bentley said calmly, adjusting his glasses. Inside though, he was quaking. He'd never seen such a look of utter despair on Sly's face and it broke his heart to know that he put it there. "Trust me," he forced himself to say, "there is a very good reason for this."

Sly turned a flat gaze on Bentley. "What could you possibly tell me that could possibly make me understand?" he asked in a defeated voice.

"I didn't really give them much choice," Carmelita began until Bentley held up his hand.

"We could've told you no, despite the consequences," Bentley said firmly. "If we didn't believe in this, nothing you threatened us with would have made us go along with it."

"That's right," Murray affirmed. "As it is, I had my doubts about it, but Bentley talked me around. I just hope we made the right choice."

Sly turned his face away in anger. "All right, explain yourselves then."

Bentley rolled closer to Sly, stopping in front of his friend. "Soon after the incident with Clock-La, when I was building my new wheelchair, Murray took me for a ride in the van to get some equipment I needed. Since you were busy mooning over Carmelita, we were actually going to buy it."

"Wait, I remember that day," Sly interrupted. "You spent over three hours out. I was getting ready to come looking for you two and you came home empty-handed."

Bentley shifted nervously. "Well, there was a reason behind that. Just when we got to the store, we were surrounded by cops. They came out of nowhere and took us down like it was nothing. I thought we were going to be carted off to jail without a second thought.

"But then Carmelita showed up and escorted us into the back of the van. She gave us a really simple choice: either we go to jail or we help her with her crazy scheme. She laid out what she had planned, and I immediately saw twenty things wrong with it. Even though she was angry, she admitted that's why she sought us out. She swore up and down she couldn't pull it off without us, that she needed us to make this work. But even that wasn't enough for me. I was convinced she was going to turn on us and throw us all in jail."

Despite his best efforts, Sly found himself becoming interested in Bentley's tale. "So what changed your mind?" he asked.

Bentley leaned forward slightly. "She was very persuasive," he said in all seriousness. "She made us a deal we simply could not refuse. If we helped her, no matter how it turned out, all three of us would be given full pardons and amnesty."

"No strings attached?" Sly asked, amazed. Something was bothering him about it, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Well, if we betrayed her, the deal was null and void. But that only makes sense. If she hadn't insisted on it I would've been suspicious."

"And what convinced you Murray?" Sly had to ask, turning his attention to his large friend. "How did she get you on board?"

Murray smirked a little. "I didn't care about the pardon or any of that other stuff. I told her to look me in the eyes and tell me why she was doing it."

"And the reason I gave to him was the same reason I gave to you," Carmelita said softly. "It was enough for him."

Murray nodded, his eyes peculiarly soft. "She swore to me that you wouldn't be hurt, that she only had your best interest in mind. I could see she was telling the truth, but I still didn't like how they were going about it."

"It was the only way Murray," Bentley said in a long-suffering voice. "We've been through this. This was the only thing we came up with that had a chance of working."

Sly looked back and forth between his friends. "You lied to me," he accused. "You gave Carmelita copies of the Thievius Racoonus, didn't you? That's the only way she could've gotten it."

"You're quite right Sly," Bentley agreed. "I did make copies for her, digitally altered to remove your notes. If she was going to do this, she was going to learn it the same way you did. But no, we did not lie to you about it."

"How can you sit there and say that?" Sly exploded, straining against his manacles. "I asked you if you gave the copies to the Vixen and you said you didn't!"

Even in the face of Sly's anger, Bentley had a superior smirk on his face. "Did I?" he challenged. "The way I remember it, all I said was that we would never give anything to your enemies. How many times have you told us that Carmelita is not our enemy?"

Sly bit down on the curses he wanted to spew at his friends. "I'm not even going to try and argue semantics with you," he grumbled. "It's still a cheap trick though."

"Just one of the many scenarios I cooked up for when you found out about that," Bentley said. "The only thing is, it wasn't supposed to happen quite that soon. You weren't supposed to find out until the sixth encounter with the Vixen, at least!"

"I had no choice," Carmelita explained. "When he changed the routine we had planned out, I had to do something to make sure we moved it along the right direction. I know this messed up your plan, but if we had tried to stick with it he would've figured everything out."

"I've already accepted that," Bentley assured her. "I had some plans ready in case he did stuff like this. But even then, Sly is so unpredictable, even to me, that we still almost messed up." He glanced over to Maia who cringed a little under his gaze. "What were you thinking telling him you were a six-time champion? If my computer skills were any less than what they are, there's no way I could've adjusted your online biography in time. You needed to communicate these things to me."

"That reminds me," Carmelita growled before Maia could respond, pressing her hand to her injured side. "When were you going to tell me that he was learning to fight hand-to-hand? Or did you want me to get beat up?"

Bentley looked a little ruffled at her accusation. "The agreement was for me to tell you anything I found out. If I had known he was training like that, you'd better believe I would've passed it on."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," Murray said, scratching his head. "I caught Sly working over the heavy bag on his own."

Both Bentley and Carmelita slowly turned to look at Murray. "And you didn't think to share this with us...why?" Bentley asked slowly.

"Well, I meant to, but then Sly whipped me in the butt with his towel and I forgot all about it."

Bentley slapped his hands to his forehead. "Anyway, despite everything that managed to go wrong we got it to work. And you can all thank me for that."

"You?" Luka snapped, startling everyone in the room. She stalked over to Bentley, spun around his wheelchair, and bent down until she was almost nose to nose with him. "Give me a break! If I hadn't figured out how to make your voice changer portable, all your plans would've been for nothing!"

"Oh yeah?" Bentley snarled, surprising Sly with his sudden show of anger. "Don't forget that it was my voice changer to begin with! And you still needed my help to make sure it always picked up Jennifer's voice!"

"Don't give me that! I could've figured it out without your help. You just happened to barge in on me during one of my brainstorming sessions."

"I didn't know brainstorming meant 'destroying everything in my workshop because I'm frustrated.' And let's not forget the simple mistake you made with the fur dye; you nearly turned her fur black instead of white!"

"At least I was able to produce a cane for her from the scans you sent while Sly was konked out with my knockout potion that I told Murray to slip into his food. You didn't even know where to get the materials from."

Sly eyed Luka and Bentley worriedly as their argument got progressively more heated and the insults they hurled got nastier and nastier. He was a little upset at Bentley, especially hearing about that knockout potion, but he didn't want him to get hurt. He looked around, hoping that someone would interfere before it came to blows and was surprised yet again when they were all looking at them with a beyond bored expression. Carmelita was even counting down from ten under her breath. She caught him looking and winked at him just as she reached zero.

No sooner had that number left her lips than the argument abruptly stopped. He noticed that Murray had his face averted while Maia and Jennifer were giggling softly. He turned back to see what was so funny and lurched back in surprise. If the chair hadn't been bolted to the floor, it would've tipped over and made him land on his head.

Bentley and Luka were...kissing? Could what they were doing even be called kissing? Sly didn't know, but they certainly seemed like they were enjoying themselves. "Did I get dropped off in The Twilight Zone or something?" he asked rhetorically, not really expecting to get an answer.

"I said the same thing when I first saw them," Carmelita confided, seating herself in his lap again. "I had to get the others and show them to make sure I wasn't losing my mind."

"Something we weren't all that happy about," Bentley said after he and Luka broke their kiss. "I have to say, when I first met her, I was skeptical. Luka is a very pretty woman, but I didn't honestly think there could be a technological mind behind the pretty facade."

"I was no better," Luka said, laying across Bentley's lap and snuggling up to him. "I flat out refused to work with him because he was a thief and because he was paralyzed. But he proved me wrong."

"Just as you did," Bentley added, stroking Luka's cheek affectionately. "The more we got to know each other, the more we respected each other. Respect turned into friendship and friendship into love."

Sly let his head drop onto her shoulder tiredly. "I don't know if I can handle any more surprises today," he whispered. "I don't even know if I should be upset that all of you ganged up on me like this or if I should be proud that it took all of you to dupe me so badly."

Carmelita wrapped her arms around him and cradled his head to her chest gently. "I'm sorry I had to put you through all this," she murmured. "Even I wasn't sold on it the first time I heard it."

Sly was quiet a moment before he jerked his head up in surprise. "Wait a minute. This wasn't your idea to begin with?" Carmelita shook her head sadly. "Then whose was it?"

"That would be me," Chief Barkley said as he strolled into the room.

Sly stared at him for what seemed like forever, unable to understand what he was doing there. Then a light went on in his mind. "Well, that explains why Maia and Luka are in on it and how Carmelita arranged for those pardons. But what it doesn't explain is why you all helped Carmelita do this just to convince me that she loved me."

"Don't flatter yourself Cooper," the chief barked. "Truth is, I had my own reasons for forcing Carmelita to confess as well as setting you up like this. The first is that I had a promise to keep, a promise I made a long time ago."

"Dare I ask what that promise is?"

The chief drew a folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Carmelita so that she could open it up for him. "Look familiar?" he asked gruffly.

Sly really didn't want to look at the paper, but Carmelita had already lifted it in front of his eyes. It was an old wedding photograph of a couple that Sly hadn't seen for over ten years. "Mom? Dad?" he whispered. "How? How did you get this picture?"

A smile cracked Chief Barkley's face. "Take another look Sly," he urged. "This time look at everyone in the picture."

Sly reluctantly did as he was told. He didn't recognize the woman standing beside his mother as her maid of honor, but his father's best man was unmistakable. "You knew my parents?"

"Knew them? Hah! Your mother was my partner when we were both just starting out."

"She was what?" Sly asked dumbly.

The chief chuckled and rubbed his hand across his forehead. "You and your father are so much alike it's scary. We were assigned to stop your father and his gang, and he flirted with my partner every chance he got. It made her so mad that no one, not even me, dared go near her for a few hours after one of our encounters with your father. I swear she must've plotted a hundred different ways to hang your father up by his toes, among other things.

"But then came a day where he didn't flirt with her. Either he was too busy or just didn't notice her, but he didn't say a word to her all night. I thought she'd be glad not to have to deal with that, but if anything she was more furious. Instead of ranting about 'how dare he' and 'who does he think he is' and all, she was raving about him daring to find some other girl but her."

"Sound familiar Cooper?" Carmelita purred in his ear. "I was much the same way when I found out you were showing some kind of interest in Neyla. I didn't exactly let anyone know about it, but I guess the chief picked up on it anyway."

"It was hard to miss," Chief Barkley remarked dryly. "Anyway, that night I confronted your mother on her real feelings for your father and got her to admit that she'd fallen in love with him. The next time he tried to steal something, she chased him off somewhere while I dealt with the rest of the gang. The next time I saw them, they were both looking very dazed and some of their clothing was rumpled."

"That's an unwelcome mental image," Sly said, shuddering a bit. "Although I wonder what would've happened if you had tried that with me," he added with a suggestive wink.

Carmelita didn't even so much as blush as she answered him. "I don't think you could've handled me," she said, flicking his nose playfully.

Amidst the laughter that followed, Chief Barkley cleared his throat. "As much as you might've liked that, there's one big difference between your mother and Carmelita. Your mother knew and accepted that your father was often a help to us and even thanked him for it on a number of occasions. The only thing that pissed her off was his flirting. Part of the point of all this was to show you that Carmelita could accept your thieving ways."

"I see your point," Sly allowed. "So what was this promise you had to keep?"

The mood in the room grew somber, telling Sly that everyone else knew about this promise. "Before your father passed away, he left a detailed will with me in case something happened to him. He had only two requests to make of me. His first request was that I not take you in. As much as I wanted to, being your godfather and all, you were not meant to be raised in a cop's life. And that's the only way I could've raised you. Instead, I was to make sure you were placed in a warm and loving orphanage and to use the money your father left me to make sure you had everything you needed until you set out to reclaim your family's heritage."

Sly grimaced slightly at the chief's words, but he agreed it was for the best. If he'd never been in that orphanage, he would've never met Murray or Bentley, and he would've never been able to take on the Fiendish Five. Given the choice between that and being raised in a loving home, he had to admit that he wouldn't have wanted anything done differently. "So what was the second request?" he asked quietly.

"When the time was right and you committed your first successful crime, I was to scour the profiles of all my female constables to find the one that best matched your mother, promote her to inspector, and assign her to your case. Even then he knew that you would be like him; attracted to the cop that was supposed to stop you. And if I guessed right, I was to help you two try and make things work when it got to that point."

"I don't know how I feel about my life being messed with like this," Sly said, a serious expression on his face. But when he saw Carmelita's ears droop sadly, his look softened. "But I can't complain about the results," he said with a warm smile.

Carmelita lightly slapped his chest in frustration, then she kissed his cheek in gratitude. "Do you want to hear the other reason?" she asked as she slowly slid off his lap, making Sly stiffen. "I'm sure you'll find that one quite funny."

"I have a feeling I'll regret this," Sly muttered. "All right, all right, let's hear it."

"She's already got you whipped, doesn't she?" Jennifer teased only to be cut off by the others. "Well, excuse me," she huffed.

Chief Barkley resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. "The truth is, I got tired of you making a mockery out of Interpol and I wanted you out of my way. There was no way any of my officers were going to capture or stop you, I knew that and so did everyone else. And apparently, so has everyone who has pursued a Cooper down through the ages."

"I don't understand..."

"It all started with your first ancestor, Slytunkhamen. The Pharoah's guardsmen, similar to the Interpol I run now, couldn't even come close to stopping him. But then one day he just...stopped. No one could figure out why until he was located at an outlying oasis caring for his wife and his firstborn son."

Sly's ears shot straight up at that news. "What?" he asked, paying careful attention.

The chief nodded, folding his hands over his stomach. "He had given up his thieving ways to settle down and raise a family. That became his whole life and he never stole again. The guards decided to leave him alone since he wasn't bothering anyone and they enjoyed a level of peace that they hadn't since before Slytunkhamen took up his cane. Or rather, they did until his son took up the mantle of 'World's Greatest Thief' and proceeded to forge his own legacy.

"So just as there has been a Cooper line throughout the ages, so has their been a line of cops trying to keep tabs on them. We know we can't stop them, only that we can keep their mischief to a minimum. When they get too troublesome, and take too long to do it on their own, we actively try to encourage them to settle down and start a family so we can have between fourteen and twenty years of quiet. And then we pass down this information to whoever the unlucky soul is that has to oversee the crime spree of the next Cooper."

Sly couldn't help but laugh. Carmelita was right, this was hilarious. "Who said anything about me settling--" His words died in his throat as he noticed Carmelita sink down to one knee. "You've got to be kidding me."

Carmelita covered his hand with hers. "I'm not a patient woman Sly," she said earnestly, "so I don't feel like waiting around for you to ask me. Here I am, on bended knee, and all I want is to become your bride. So answer me just one question Ringtail, will you marry me?"

Sly felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. On a day filled with surprises, this one took the cake. "Umm, doesn't the guy traditionally ask the girl?" It was stupid, he knew, but it was the only thing that came to mind at the moment.

The corner of Carmelita's indigo painted lips quirked up ever so slightly. "Is there anything traditional about our love?"

"I suppose not. But it's not like I have a ring or anything."

The chief walked over and pulled a small pouch from his pocket. "Your mom left this for you in her will. Any other questions?"

Sly glanced down at his still manacled hands and looked back at him, raising his eyebrow. Carmelita sheepishly reached behind the chair and tripped a switch, causing the manacles to release Sly. He quickly rubbed his wrists, trying restore circulation to them. Once the stiffness had faded, he took the pouch from Chief Barkley and opened it up, tipping the contents into his palm.

Three rings tumbled out, glittering faintly in the light. Two were made of gold and void of any decoration, one slightly wider and thicker than the other. The third was made of white gold and had a small yet perfect diamond set in it. "My parents' rings," he said, turning them over and over in his hands.

When he was younger, he'd often asked his father why the rings weren't more flashy or intricate like someone would expect a Master Thief to have. The answer he got was very simple yet very profound: you might want to show off to the rest of the world, but the one person you should never feel you have to impress is the woman you make your wife. He didn't understand it at the time, but now he did.

Sly placed two of the rings back into the bag, placing them carefully in his pocket. "I guess here is where I ask you," he said, taking Carmelita's hand and slipping her glove off. "But since you already did it, this will be where I answer. I love you as much as you have shown that you love me. Yes Carmelita Montoya Fox. Yes I will marry you."

There were a few awws as Sly slipped the ring on her finger, but he wasn't really listening to them. His first thought was that the ring was a little loose and would have to be resized to fit her finger. Any other thoughts were going to wait as Carmelita pulled him up into her arms and kissed him soundly, a kiss that he eagerly returned.

By the time they broke apart, both of them were breathless. "You know I don't like to be kept waiting," she breathed against his lips. "This better not be one of those long and drawn-out engagements. Our wedding better be soon."

"Is tomorrow night soon enough?" Sly quipped, pecking her lightly on her nose.

Carmelita pondered it for a moment before shaking her head. "Not really, but then I doubt you could find a priest down here. So I guess it'll have to do."

"What? You mean you didn't bring one with you?"

"I thought about it, but then I realized it wouldn't be a good idea with all those Prinnies around. Having a priest in the same building as demonic exploding penguins is a tragedy waiting to happen."

"Oh yeah," Murray said, drawn from his conversation with Chief Barkley at the mention of the Prinnies. "What are you going to do with those things?"

Carmelita shrugged distractedly. "I'm not really sure. We don't know how to send them back and we can't leave them here. I'm sure we'll find some place for them until we can get them home. At the very least, I want one of them to be our ringbearer."

"Please tell me you're joking," Sly pleaded, making Carmelita burst out in laughter. "I'm not tied down anymore," he reminded her, slowly advancing on her.

Carmelita backed away with a saucy smile. "At least until tomorrow night," she said before turning tail and running, Sly hot on her heels.

Chief Barkley watched them go with a wistful grin on his face. "I hope I did you both proud," he whispered to the empty air beside him. "Your son has grown into a fine man. He's a credit to you both and to the Cooper line. I know their child will be the same way."

FIN


End file.
